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Danae ECT NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 2021 EXEC’S CORNER Welcome to this latest issue of ECT’s quarterly newsletter. The undoubted highlight of this past quarter has been ECT’s co-sponsorship of a first in-person
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EXEC’S CORNER Welcome to this latest issue of ECT’s quarterly newsletter. The undoubted highlight of this past quarter has been ECT’s co-sponsorship of a first in-person event since the coronavirus pandemic began. We were delighted to partner with Northern Ireland’s Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute to co-host a small event marking 50 years of continuous research at the remarkable Hillsborough long-term grassland experiment in County Down. With the use of a marquee, all proceedings took place outdoors, featuring a super keynote talk from Jonathan Storkey of Rothamsted Research about Park Grass LTE, and including a tour of the 48 experimental plots with Principal Investigator Dario Fornara. Hillsborough LTE is right up there in the top 10 experiments on ECT’s register in terms of longevity. Read more below, and further details about this experiment and its impacts can be found on our website. - Ben Sykes.
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‘NEW’ LTE ADDED TO ECT’S NATIONAL REGISTER OF EXPERIMENTS We are pleased to highlight the addition of the Moor House Grazing Plots to ECT’s national register, some of which have been running continuously since 1953 and for much of that time have been looked after by PI Rob Marrs from the University of Liverpool. This brings ECT’s currently active register to 35 experiments across 36 different sites.
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SITE VISITS In late June, ECT undertook a corporate visit to the Wicken Fen nature reserve in Cambridgeshire, hosted by Sarah Smith and Martin Lester of the National Trust. We explored strategic partnership with the National Trust and visited the famous Godwin Plots established in 1923 which we hope will soon be added to ECT’s national register. |
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After the Wicken Fen visit, ECT also visited Thursley Common, Surrey in June. This site is being repurposed since Jill Kowal (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) received a small grant from the ECT. We met with Jill (right), her postdoc Elena Arrigoni (centre), and her collaborator Silvia Pressel from the Natural History Museum (left). |
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In July, ECT visited Colt Park Meadows to meet with Richard Bardgett (second from left) and his team from the University of Manchester, plus collaborators John Quinton (third from the left) and Gareth McShane (foreground) from Lancaster University, and site manager Andrew Hinde from Natural England. |
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Following this, ECT visited the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory (BCCIL) in Derbyshire and met with Raj Whitlock (second from the left) and Andrew Askew (far left) from the University of Liverpool, plus several students who were also on site assisting with vegetation surveys. |
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More recently on 17 September, Gareth Clay (Reader in Physical Geography, University of Manchester) talked about linking up long term ecological experiments with wildfire research. A recording will be available shortly via ECT’s YouTube channel. |
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50 YEARS OF THE HILLSBOROUGH GRASSLAND LTE IN NORTHERN IRELAND To mark the 50th anniversary of the Hillsborough LTE in County Down, ECT partnered with the Agri-Food and Biosciences (AFBI) to host a face-to-face event which took place on 16 September. It included a special address from Jonathan Storkey from Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, and a tour of the experimental plots along with some celebratory cake to mark the occasion. |
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EXTERNAL EVENTS In July, ECT partnered with CIEEM to host the discussion ‘Identifying Long-term evidence needs for biodiversity net gain’ which is now available to watch on YouTube. ECT trustee Ken Thompson joined a panel of speakers from Balfour Beatty, WSP UK, University of Kent and Natural England.
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THE NORTH WYKE FARM PLATFORM ON BBC COUNTRYFILE The North Wyke Farm Platform long-term experiment featured on BBC Countryfile which aired back in July. Freelancer and broadcast journalist Tom Heap interviewed Graham McAuliffe from Rothamsted Research about this experiment, and how it fits into the National Food Strategy. Watch from 17:34 to see the prelude to the interview, and this episode will be available to watch for 10 months (a login is required for BBC iPlayer).
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VOLUNTEER FOR THE ECT The ECT is now seeking to establish a pool of volunteers that can be called upon from time-to time to help with various projects. Volunteer opportunities may include remote communications activities or, depending upon pandemic restrictions and your locality, joining a maintenance team for a day at one of the active long-term experiments on ECT’s register. Depending upon the size of the volunteer pool and availability, we expect to call upon volunteers up to twice a year. If you are interested in joining this volunteer pool, please reply to Ben to express your interest, and include a short paragraph describing any relevant skills/knowledge that you may bring to the role.
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NEW PUBLICATION FROM WARDLOW HAY COP Recent work from the Phosphorus Limitation and Carbon dioxide Enrichment (PLACE) team which is a collaboration between the Universities of Sheffield, Exeter and Lancaster, has been published in Biogeosciences. Plant biomass, soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus data were collected from the Wardlow Hay Cop LTE (Derbyshire), which is composed of two phosphorus-limited grasslands; an acidic and a limestone grassland. These data were integrated into a carbon-nitrogen-phosphorus biogeochemical cycling model to explore how these grasslands may have responded to past nitrogen deposition, the nutrient manipulation experiment, and also identify the factors that may influence grassland responses. The results showed that both nitrogen deposition and treatment exacerbated phosphorus demand in both grasslands, but had different effects on the biogeochemical cycling model: Plants in the modelled acidic grassland accessed enough phosphorus from organic forms in the soil to stimulate growth and sequester carbon in response to nitrogen input. However, organic phosphorus was less accessible to the limestone grassland. The nitrogen additions worsened pre-existing phosphorus limitation and reduced soil organic carbon stocks. Overall, the data shows that similarly phosphorus-limited grasslands and their carbon stocks may not respond to nitrogen deposition in the same way, and the direction of response may depend on access to organic phosphorus forms.
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NEW PUBLICATION FROM BIFoR-FACE The first science results from the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research Free Air CO2 Experiment (BIFoR FACE) have been published in Tree Physiology. The paper reports the photosynthetic responses of 175-year-old English oak trees in response to the first three years of a ten-year elevated carbon dioxide experiment. The research (conducted by PhD researcher Anna Gardner under Rob MacKenzie) provides the first piece of the carbon cycle for the forest-level carbon dioxide experiment in Staffordshire. BIFoR-FACE researchers are now investigating where the extra carbon captured ends up, and for how long it stays locked up in the forest. |
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NEW PHD STUDENT AT THE AINSDALE DUNE SLACKS LTE Fanni Tanka is a first-year CENTA Doctoral Training Programme student at Loughborough University based at UKCEH Lancaster. In July, she joined Aidan Keith and Jonathan Millett to work on the Ainsdale Dune Slacks long-term experiment. Her research is to investigate the impact of different grazing regimes on the diversity of soil mesofauna. Previously her research focused on forest management and related UK policies. NEW RAINDROP VIDEO The University of Oxford has released a new video as part of their Laboratory with Leaves series on the RainDrop experiment: The Climate Time Machine which is on YouTube features PI Andy Hector and PhD student Sara Middleton explaining why this experiment is important in the context of climate change.
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NBN TRUST’S CONFERENCE This year’s NBN Conference will take place online on Wednesday 24 November, and the theme is “Biodiversity data – from collection to use”. The NBN Trust is co-hosting this one day conference with iSpot/Open University, which will include a keynote presentation, the annual Sir John Burnett Memorial Lecture and 10-minute talks. The main highlight for the day will be the announcement of the winners and runners up in the NBN Awards for Wildlife Recording. Registration is now open. |
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JOIN THE LTE USER GROUP For those of you who may not be part of the LTE User Group, it is a network of stakeholders passionate about long-term experiments and the results they generate. Find more information and how to join it on our Join Us page. If you are already a member, please do forward this information to your colleagues. |
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Please get in contact if you have any information for the website or newsletter or for social media, or if you wish to submit a blog. This can include new publications, relevant LTE job opportunities, or media you have featured in. Feel free to get in touch with any questions you have or if you have any feedback on this newsletter. Please forward this email newsletter to those whom you think will benefit. And if you received this email from a friend, subscribe here.
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