Tag Archives: Ecosystem

Dont Panic! A Hitchhikers guide to Urban Forestry!

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Hello internet!

I hope you have enjoyed my last two posts on the careers aspect of the module, there are more of those to come, but this week we are returning to biology some of you will be glad to hear!

The seminar I attended this month was entitled ‘Don’t panic! A hitchhikers guide to urban forestry’ given by Tim Hall. While my fellow bloggers and I were discussing our appreciation for the title which will appeal to any Sci-Fi fanatic and whether or not the words Urban and Forest could be used together in the same sentence he began..

Tim started out by defining what exactly an ‘urban forest’ is, he explained that the term itself has only become widely used in the large few years as populations have increased and that it is still rather flexible depending on the context it is being used, for example Stockholm’s government class an urban forest as being within an hour’s drive of the population while some research papers which need to be more specific in order to get funding can define it as a population of trees with in 1km of a 2000+ population . But why is Urban forestry so important?! Well it turns out that trees provide an awful lot of ecosystem services which are becoming more and more important in our increasingly urbanised population, currently at 80% urban in the Uk and worldwide is predicted to rise to 70% (from 50%) by 2050.

But what do these urban trees look like to us and what are those all-important ecosystem services that they provide? Next time you leave your house, look around; there can be a surprizing amount of trees in our concrete utopias. Look in the parks, the gardens, the leafy suburbs and even those trees used to decorate our streets and they are all of great benefit to the area you are in, more than you properly realise .

In the Summer they provide a cooling effect transpiring up to 450litres of water a day acting as a natural air conditioning system for our streets and providing shade, while in the winter the lack of leaves increases the sunlight warming our streets and they help to buffer the urban heat island effect.

What about Water management? This is very topical considering our recent flooding events, it is estimated that a 20% loss in trees within urban areas would result in an extra million litres of surface water during storm conditions exasperating any existing flooding problem.

What about the health benefits? We all consider trees to be good for the air quality in the area, but the extent to which that is true is truly shocking as Tim explained. The trees in the city of Chicago alone can remove up to 10.8 tons of pollution from the air every day. (wow). This has noticeable effects on conditions such as child asthma. Several studies have also noted the positive effect on surgical healing rates (being quicker with less need for pain relief) and on our mental wellbeing with the exercise of ‘forest bathing’ becoming increasingly popular.

There are also many Social and economic benefits with parks increasing land value and tempting shoppers to stay that little bit longer on the high street as well as the endless amounts community projects and school trips that can happen in a woodland area.

However, as Tim pointed out, even though trees do their very best for us, we literally cannot see the wood for the trees some times and constantly complain about our views, shade, leaves, height and other people using the woodland areas (although sometimes they are being used for the wrong reasons).

Tim concluded with some remarks about the future of urban forestry, thankfully, all the benefits mentioned above are slowly being recognised and local governments and other organisations are moving towards protecting and even increasing the amount of urban forestry!

Thank you for reading and I hope I was able to do this truly interesting seminar some justice!

Until next time Internet!

D

Some more Information about Tim :  http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-6AHLZU
A very interesting video by American forestry which covers many of the issues mentioned by tim : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlz_rZH1lYk

Seminar 2 A Misunderstood Native Critter.

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Well, the seminar I have chosen to write on this month was one delivered by David Bavin. David was a student here in Bangor once upon a time before doing a Masters course at Edinburgh. He is now working for the Vincent Wildlife trust, which is a small trust which works with small mammals, mainly bats and mustelids. His Animal of choice for this Seminar however was the Pine Marten!

He Started by giving a brief description of the creature in question ;
-Cat sized
-Weasel like
-Long Legs
-Redish Brown coat with a yellow bib
-Carnivore (Mainly, I mean it also eats nuts and fruit when they are in season  but tends to focus on mammals, invertebrates and birds)

David spoke on how this native critter had declined from possibly second most common predator in Britain to being rather rare and localised. The main reasons for this seemed to be hunting and lack of habitat coupled with a very low productive rate.

Unfortunately during the time that fur was fashionable they were sort after and hunted but now they are often confused for foxes and are shot by people trying to protect their livestock and homes.

In terms of habitat there seems to be a lack of ‘old trees’ lost by deforestation or serve storms. This is an issue as a Pine Martens ideal home is a hollow within an old tree.  They will nest on the ground but it puts them at a disadvantage in terms of predation and keeping young warm. They have turned to using building cavities like loft spaces, but as you can imagine this hasn’t helped with the first problem much…

But he brought the topic to a close on a much more positive note! He talked about how conservation work is taking place to reinforce the current welsh populations , which is funded , by the  5 pence we spend here in wales to by a plastic bag (in the Co-op)

The work mainly involves raising public awareness and surveying populations. Rather interestingly surveying populations involves our old friend TECHNOLOGY! Camera traps are increasingly being used as they inexpensively collect data!

Lastly David comment on the benefits to having a strong and healthy population of pine martens. Firstly they are a natural and native species to the UK and therefore protecting them maintains a balanced natural ecosystem but mainly they provide fantastic ecosystem services. This takes place economically by the fact their rarity draws in tourists, ecotourism, but in a much more important sense, as a biologist, by the fact they are proving to an effective measure of controlling the grey squirrel blight on the UK, and in Ireland allowing for the red squirrel population to reassert itself, with a few unlucky martyrs…. did I mention they eat mammals?

Pine Martens then; native predators beneficial to the ecosystem and economy! Threatened, like so many other things by Habitat loss and hunting and they are now my favourite native mammal.

Please leave any comments if you so desire and to finish I have found a clip of a new report from BBC South East about the reintroduction of pine martens, I can’t say anything about how in date it is.

Thanks

D.

Video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m–_dk-6eX0

Vincent Wildlife trust : http://www.vwt.org.uk/ ( Just spotted they currently have a vacancy for a Pine Marten Warden! Just incase your reading this an looking for a job!)

Related articles (Other Blogs Posted by Class mates on the same seminar!)