Linking restoration to the wider landscape: A study of a bracken control experiment within a upland moorland landscape mosaic in the Peak District, UK

Abstract

The reasons for choice of restoration target are often driven by policy objectives such as the requirements of Agri-environment schemes or Biodiversity Action Plans, where the target community may not reflect the characteristics of the surrounding landscape. Here, we relate the results of a restoration experiment designed to reverse succession by controlling bracken ( Pteridium aquilinum) and restoring moorland within the context of the surrounding landscape. Our study included three parts: (1) we tested the effects of the bracken control/restoration treatments within a relatively long-term experiment; (2) we used high spatial resolution aerial photography to produce a map of the landscape surrounding with 13 component land classes, and then estimated the composition and configuration of the landscape; (3) we compared the species in standing vegetation and soil diaspore bank and the vegetation communities in the experimental area and the wider landscape. The restoration treatments applied experimentally showed varying degrees of success. The bracken cover was reduced to varying degrees and for various periods by control, and the species number and cover increased over the 10 years. The vegetation communities (UK NVC classes) produced showed a mixture of responses, some close to the target and some not; these varied from dense bracken stands through to well-established Calluna and grass-heath mosaics, with some woodland communities. Comparison of the experiment with the landscape indicated that the restoration work had successfully created some of the target communities. However, it also showed that within the experiment there were some unwanted communities typical of disturbed habitats, there was a lack of mire communities, which were prevalent in the wider landscape, and there were some developing woodland communities. The latter result suggests it may have been more sensible to choose a woodland target on this site rather than moorland. The wider landscape had a fine-grained texture, was highly fragmented and had an intermixed distribution of many communities, with mires having a more complex structure than communities on drier soils.