Dear All
Langlands Moss was one of the sites used by Pete Langdon in his PhD
(1999) here at PLUS. Pete is presently travelling in Australia so it
falls to me to correct the perceived lack of scientific work on the
site. It has since been published in:-
Langdon, P. G. and Barber, K. E. 2002. The 'AD 860' tephra in Scotland:
new data from Langlands Moss, East Kilbride. Quaternary Newsletter, 97,
11-18.
Langdon, P. G. and Barber, K. E. 2004. Snapshots in time: precise
correlations of peat-based proxy climate records in Scotland using
mid-Holocene tephras. The Holocene, 14, 21-33.
Langdon, P. G. and Barber, K. E. 2005. The climate of Scotland over the
last 5000 years inferred from multi-proxy peatland records: inter-site
correlations and regional variability. Journal of Quaternary Science,
20, 546-566.
A major feature of interest at Langlands, and at so many other British
raised bogs, is the extinction of Sphagnum imbricatum (austinii), mainly
after about 1000 cal. BP, after dominating some sites for most of the
late Holocene. This is discussed in the 2005 paper, as well as in:-
Mauquoy, D. and Barber, K. E. 1999. Evidence for climatic deteriorations
associated with the decline of Sphagnum imbricatum Hornsch. Ex Russ. in
six ombrotrophic mires from Northern England and the Scottish Borders.
The Holocene, 9, 423 - 437.
... and we have another couple of papers in review / in press that
discuss the same phenomenon.
The removal of the trees from the site is covered in detail in Rob
Stoneman's chapter in the Conserving Peatlands book - Rob also did
extensive work on Scottish raised bogs for his PLUS PhD before going on
to work on the Raised Bog Survey for SWT:-
Stoneman, R. E. 1993. Holocene palaeoclimates from peat stratigraphy:
extending and refining the model. PhD thesis, University of
Southampton.
More generally, the relationship between the present state of many
Atlantic raised bogs and their palaeoecology is covered, inter alia, by
some of our publications:-
Barber, K. E. 1993 Peatlands as scientific archives of biodiversity.
Biodiversity & Conservation 2, 474 - 489.
Barber, K. E. 1994. Deriving Holocene palaeoclimates from peat
stratigraphy: some misconceptions regarding the sensitivity and
continuity of the record. Quaternary Newsletter, 72, 1-9.
Barber, K. E., Dumayne-Peaty, L., Hughes, P. D. M., Mauquoy, D. and
Scaife, R. G. 1998. Replicability and variability of the recent
macrofossil and proxy-climate record from raised bogs: field
stratigraphy and macrofossil data from Bolton Fell Moss and Walton Moss,
Cumbria, England. Journal of Quaternary Science 13, 515-528.
Rydin, H. and Barber, K. E. 2001. Long-term and fine-scale coexistence
of closely related species. Folia Geobotanica, 36, 53-61.
Barber, K. E., Chambers, F. M. and Maddy, D. 2003. Holocene
palaeoclimates from peat stratigraphy: macrofossil proxy-climate records
from three oceanic raised bogs in England and Ireland. Quaternary
Science Reviews, 22, 521-539.
Barber, K. E. and Charman, D. J. 2003. Holocene palaeoclimate records
from peatlands. In Mackay, A. W., Battarbee, R. W., Birks, H. J. B. and
Oldfield, F. (Eds.) Global Change in the Holocene. Edward Arnold,
London, pp. 210-226.
McMullen, J. A., Barber, K. E. and Johnson, B. 2004. A paleoecological
perspective of vegetation succession on raised bog microforms.
Ecological Monographs, 74 (1), 45-77.
Barber, K. E. 2006. Peatland records of Holocene climate change. In
Elias, S. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science, Elsevier, Oxford.
1884-1895.
Whilst we at PLUS have been mainly publishing papers on the
palaeoclimate record that can be derived from raised bogs, an awful lot
of interesting species changes, intriguing in the light of the present
condition of the bogs, may be gleaned from the macrofossil analyses we
have performed.
Hope this is of interest.
Cheers
Keith
*********************************************************************
Professor Keith E. Barber
Director of Palaeoecology Laboratory (PLUS)
School of Geography
University of Southampton
SOUTHAMPTON SO17 1BJ
Tel. Direct 023 8059 3215
Tel. Lab 023 8059 2226
Web http://www.geog.soton.ac.uk/research/plus/index.html
*********************************************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: Interdisciplinary forum for research on mires & peatlands
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Deborah Pearce
Sent: 09 August 2007 20:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: BES Field visit during BES Glasgow meeting
Dear all,
Russell Anderson has come up with some suggestions for a possible field
visit during the Glasgow BES. Please could you register your interest
and
cite your preference. Any comments welcome.
The message that follows is from Russell:
One possible visit would be to Langlands Moss. It's a raised bog near
East Kilbride, part of which was afforested in the 1960s or 1970s and
then 'restored' using helicopter logging by the Scottish Wildlife Trust
in 1995. It was important as the first demo of deforestation/restoration
of a lowland raised bog in Britain and became the first of many. I
think it has since suffered from vandalism and neglect but might still
be of interest. As far as I know there has been no research so there
would be no scientific results to discuss. It's a small site and has a
boardwalk on part of it. If you think it could be suitable, we'd need to
check with Scottish Wildlife Trust and/or Calderglen Country Park
(current managers of the site) that they were happy for us to visit.
They might provide someone to host the visit.
Another possibility would be Murdostoun/Heatherhead Moss, a mostly
afforested raised bog near Shotts, currently the subject of a windfarm
development application. Again there has been no research but it would
be a good site to discuss issues such as the impacts of windfarms on
peatlands and restoration of bogs altered by afforestation. There is
another raised bog, Mossband, very nearby that is interesting for the
anthropogenic impacts it has suffered, including peat cutting,
afforestation and the digging of pools for lint retting. Forestry
Commission Scotland manages these two sites so I could arrange
permission to visit.
A third possibility would be to visit some very good blanket mire on the
Slamannan Plateau near Cumbernauld. Again no research but issues of
repeated fires and deforestation.
None of these would be as good as a proper research site with results to
discuss or a monitored managed site but they might do if suggestions for
better sites are not forthcoming.
Best wishes
Russell
--------------------------------------------
Mr Russell Anderson
Ecologist for Open Habitats
Forest Research
Roslin, Midlothian
EH25 9SY
Tel: 0131 445 6971
Fax: 0131 445 7335
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Website: wwwforestresearch.gov.uk
|