Structure and Production of North Pennine Blanket Bog Vegetation

Abstract

Moor House National Nature Reserve, on the North Pennines in the north-east corner of Westmorland, is the main British moorland site for the International Biological Programme (IBP) productivity studies. The present work forms part of an integrated research programme designed to study the dynamics of the entire bog ecosystem, in particular the cycling of dry matter within the community. It is important that reliable estimates of the primary production of the ecosystem, which forms the starting material for conversions involving secondary producers, decomposers and peat formation, should be obtained. The vegetation of the reserve consists predominantly of Calluneto-Eriophoretum blanket bog (Eddy, Welch & Rawes 1969). To estimate the production of such a dwarf shrub-tussock community, it is insufficient merely to measure biomass increments through the season; additional methods, relying upon an adequate quantitative description of the community structure, have had to be developed, some of which are similar to those commonly used in woodland production studies. The fieldwork comprising the main part of this project was carried out in 1968, although sampling of Calluna litterfall and of Eriophorum tussocks was continued into 1969.