Woodland Development – A Long–term Study of Lady Park Wood de George Peterken

Woodland Development – A Long–term Study of Lady Park Wood

George Peterken

Edward Mountford

en Limba Engleză Paperback – 22 aug 2017

In 1944 Lady Park Wood (45 hectares of woodland in Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, UK) was set aside indefinitely by the Forestry Commission so that ecologists could study how woodland develops naturally. Since then, in a unique long-term study, individual trees and shrubs have been recorded at intervals, accumulating a detailed record of more than 20,000 individual beech, sessile oak, ash, wych elm, small-leaved lime, large-leaved lime, birch, hazel, yew and other species.

In the seven decades since the study started, the wood has changed; trees grew, died and regenerated, and drought, disease and other events shaped its destiny. Each tree and shrub species reacted in its own way to changes in the wood as a whole and to changes in the fortunes of its neighbours. Meanwhile, the wild fauna, flora and fungi also responded, leaving the wood richer in some groups but poorer in others.

In this landmark book, beautifully illustrated throughout, George Peterken and Edward Mountford, summarise the ongoing results of the Lady Park Wood study, highlighting its unique place in nature conservation and its significance to ecology in general. It also builds on experience at Lady Park Wood and elsewhere to discuss in particular: the role and maintenance of long-term ecological studies; the concept and form of natural woodland; the role of minimum-intervention policies in woodland nature conservation; near-to-nature forestry; and the desirability and practicalities of re-wilding woodlands.

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Notă biografică

George Peterken after a Ph.D. at University College, London and a short appointment in Aberystwyth University, Dr Peterken was for two years coordinator of part of the International Biological Program and then scientific officer in the Biological Records Center. He was then appointed to the Nature Conservancy's woodland management section at Monks Wood in 1969, and remained a woodland ecologist with NC and successor bodies until 1992, spending much of his time as the senior woodland ecologist in the Chief Scientist's Team, where his work ranged from policy negotiations through research commissioning, personal research and lecturing to on-site management advice, in fact anything and everything that might advance woodland ecology and nature conservation. He took a sabbatical for 18 months in 1989-90 to study so-called virgin forests in mainland Europe and to hold a Bullard Fellowship at Harvard University.In 1993, he went independent. For a decade he was part-time nature conservation advisor to the Forestry Commission, but was also involved in collaborative research projects, teaching, lecturing, writing and routine consultancy. Shortly after the Millennium he decided to spend his time mainly writing a New Naturalist volume and more recently a book on Meadows - meadows being a retirement hobby. Long-term studies have been a theme of his research and research-commissioning since the 1970's, when he first became involved with Lady Park Wood, the subject of this book. Dr Peterken's interest in historical ecology dates from the 1960's.

Descriere

Lady Park Wood in the Wye Valley, UK was set aside as a 'natural' reserve for ecological research in 1944 and the trees, shrubs and ground vegetation have been recorded in detail ever since. This beautifully illustrated book describes 70 years of observations presenting the most detailed records in Europe of how a woodland develops naturally.