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The oil and gas industry has a long history of operating in peat-forming regions in the tropics, but the extent to which peatland ecosystems are vulnerable to those operations is not well understood. This knowledge gap is concerning given the continuing drive to explore peatland areas for hydrocarbons. Here we present an analysis of the exposure of tropical peatlands to the oil and gas industry and review what is known of the peatlands’ sensitivity to that exposure. We show that across the tropics, oil and gas infrastructure is more concentrated in peat-forming regions than we would expect by chance alone, which we suggest is likely due to the persistence over geological timescales of basins which can be suitable both for forming oil and gas source rocks, and for encouraging the poorly-drained conditions that support peat accumulation. Focusing on a case study from Peru, we discuss the extent to which peatlands as ecosystems are known to be sensitive to oil industry activities. These sensitivities may include deforestation and habitat degradation/disturbance during survey and exploration work, and contamination by produced water and by oil spills. Drawing on interdisciplinary research, we also explore the socio-economic and cultural consequences of the oil industry on local communities over the past fifty years. In some cases, enhanced immigration and cultural change (e.g. integration into markets) appear to have had profound effects not just on the members of those communities, but also on the extent to which they have used and altered the surrounding peatland ecosystems. We go on to explore the development of environmental safeguards, which have tended to become more stringent over time but which have not yet succeeded in preventing (e.g.) oil spills. We conclude by identifying key areas where further research is needed, notably in exploring the direct effects of oil and gas industry activities on the carbon storage function of peatlands.

Funding: This project is funded through a joint James Hutton Institute & University of St Andrews collaborative PhD Studentship, the Carnegie Trust and the British Deer Society. Outdoor recreation has the potential to impact the spatial and temporal distribution of animals. We explore interactions between red deer Cervus elaphus and hikers along a popular hiking path in the Scottish Highlands. We placed camera traps in transects at different distances (25, 75 and 150 m) from the path to study whether distance from hiker activity influences the number of deer detected. We compared this with the detection of red deer in an additional, spatially isolated area (one km away from any other transects and the hiking path). We collected count data on hikers at the start of the path and explored hourly (red deer detection during daytime), daily, diurnal (day versus night) and monthly spatial distributions of red deer. Using generalized linear mixed models with forward model selection, we found that the distribution of deer changed with the hiking activity. We found that fewer red deer were detected during busy hourly hiking periods. We found that during daytime, more red deer were detected at 150 m than at 25 m. Moreover, during the day, red deer were detected at a greater rate in the isolated area than around the transects close to the path and more likely to be found close to the path at night. This suggests that avoidance of hikers by red deer, in this study area, takes place over distances greater than 75 m and that red deer are displaced into less disturbed areas when the hiking path is busy. Our results suggest that the impact of hikers is short-term, as deer return to the disturbed areas during the night. Publisher PDF

In order to prevent and control the emergence of biosecurity threats such as vector-borne diseases of plants, it is vital to understand drivers of entry, establishment, and spatiotemporal spread, as well as the form, timing, and effectiveness of disease management strategies. An inherent challenge for policy in combatting emerging disease is the uncertainty associated with intervention planning in areas not yet affected, based on models and data from current outbreaks. Following the recent high-profile emergence of the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa in a number of European countries, we review the most pertinent epidemiological uncertainties concerning the dynamics of this bacterium in novel environments. To reduce the considerable ecological and socio-economic impacts of these outbreaks, eco-epidemiological research in a broader range of environmental conditions needs to be conducted and used to inform policy to enhance disease risk assessment, and support successful policy-making decisions. By characterizing infection pathways, we can highlight the uncertainties that surround our knowledge of this disease, drawing attention to how these are amplified when trying to predict and manage outbreaks in currently unaffected locations. To help guide future research and decision-making processes, we invited experts in different fields of plant pathology to identify data to prioritize when developing pest risk assessments. Our analysis revealed that epidemiological uncertainty is mainly driven by the large variety of hosts, vectors, and bacterial strains, leading to a range of different epidemiological characteristics further magnified by novel environmental conditions. These results offer new insights on how eco-epidemiological analyses can enhance understanding of plant disease spread and support management recommendations. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY 4.0 International license .

Palaeoecology has been prominent in studies of environmental change during the Holocene epoch in Scotland. These studies have been dominated by palynology (pollen, spore and related bio-and litho-stratigraphic analyses) as a key approach to multi- and inter-disciplinary investigations of topics such as vegetation, climate and landscape change. This paper highlights some key dimensions of the pollen- and vegetation-based archive, with a focus upon woodland dynamics, blanket peat, human impacts, biodiversity and conservation. Following a brief discussion of chronological, climatic, faunal and landscape contexts, the migration, survival and nature of the woodland cover through time is assessed, emphasising its time-transgressiveness and altitudinal variation. While agriculture led to the demise of woodland in lowland areas of the south and east, the spread of blanket peat was especially a phenomenon of the north and west, including the Western and Northern Isles. Almost a quarter of Scotland is covered by blanket peat and the cause(s) of its spread continue(s) to evoke recourse to climatic, topographic, pedogenic, hydrological, biotic or anthropogenic influences, while we remain insufficiently knowledgeable about the timing of the formation processes. Humans have been implicated in vegetational change throughout the Holocene, with prehistoric woodland removal, woodland management, agricultural impacts arising from arable and pastoral activities, potential heathland development and afforestation. The viability of many current vegetation communities remains a concern, in that Scottish data show reductions in plant diversity over the last 400 years, which recent conservation efforts have yet to reverse. Palaeoecological evidence can be used to test whether conservation baselines and restoration targets are appropriate to longer-term ecosystem variability and can help identify when modern conditions have no past analogues.

The concept of resilience has become increasingly important in ecological and socio-ecological literature. With its focus on the temporal behaviour of ecosystems, palaeoecology has an important role to play in developing a scientific understanding of ecological resilience. We provide a critical review of the ways in which resilience is being addressed by palaeoecologists. We review ~180 papers, identifying the definitions or conceptualisations of ‘resilience’ that they use, and analysing the ways in which palaeoecology is contributing to our understanding of ecological resilience. We identify three key areas for further development. First, the term ‘resilience’ is frequently defined too broadly to be meaningful without further qualification. In particular, palaeoecologists need to distinguish between ‘press’ vs ‘pulse’ disturbances, and ‘ecological’ vs ‘engineering’ resilience. Palaeoecologists are well placed to critically assess the extent to which these dichotomies apply in real (rather than theoretical) ecosystems, where climate and other environmental parameters are constantly changing. Second, defining a formal ‘response model’ – a statement of the anticipated relationships between proxies, disturbances and resilience properties – can help to clarify arguments, especially inferred causal links, since the difficulty of proving causation is a fundamental limitation of palaeoecology for understanding ecosystem drivers and responses. Third, there is a need for critical analysis of the role of scale in ecosystem resilience. Different palaeoenvironmental proxies are differently able to address the various temporal and spatial scales of ecological change, and these limitations, as well as methodological constraints on inherently noisy proxy data, need to be explored and addressed.

This study was supported by the Ecological Continuity Trust and the Quaternary Research Association. Coprophilous fungal spores (CFS) have gained prominence in paleoecology as a proxy for large herbivore dynamics. Dung availability is one of several factors that influences spore abundance so it is unclear how closely CFS levels track herbivore biomass. This uncertainty is particularly relevant in peat- and moorland, where grazing impacts are a recurring topic in paleoecology and source of tension in environmental management, and where the method has yet to be tested. The current study used three ecological and conservation grazingexperiments in UK peat- and moorland to study modern and recent historic relationships between grazing treatment and the abundance of three key CFS types and three pollen disturbance indicators. A total of 78 surface samples and 2 short peat cores were analyzed. Dispersal distances are estimated to range from < 10m to tens of meters, based on significantly lower CFS abundance in exclosed than grazed plots at two sites, and similar CFS trends over the last century in short peats cores located 80m apart at the third site. The CFS signal thus represents activity in the surrounding landscape, despite predominantly local dispersal. CFS abundance does not correspond with animal biomass when compared across the three sites, however, and pollen disturbance indicators in the peat cores matched recent historic grazing records more consistently than CFS abundance. Potential reasons for these mismatches are discussed. Quantitative inferences about large herbivore abundance from CFS in peatlands should therefore be made with caution and recommendations are madefor further testing of the method. Postprint

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through the Rural Economy and Land-Use Programme (RES-229-27-0003). Identifying critical shifts in ecosystems caused by human impacts has become a priority for understanding resilience to change and setting realistic management goals. Previous work suggests that many British blanket peats have suffered a loss of functional integrity over recent centuries, but it is unclear whether all moorland habitats are equally vulnerable. This study examines the relative sensitivity of four contrasting moorland communities to historic land-use changes and assesses whether these management pressures are pushing some moorlands beyond their Holocene range of variability. Late Holocene dynamics in the Peak District, northern England, were investigated using high-resolution pollen, fungal spore and charcoal data, and multivariate analyses. All sites show high Calluna values during the nineteenth century and converge on local Poaceae-dominance during the twentieth century. This involved a shift from gradual or cyclical variability and moderate changes in pollen abundance during preceding centuries, to rapid transitions between mono-dominant pollen assemblages and a functional shift to taxa with competitive traits; these are interpreted as a regime shift. Evidence for the recent recovery of dwarf-shrubs and Sphagnum is strong at one site, with slight evidence from two others, but disturbance could push the system back to grass-dominance. The deep blanket peat site may have crossed a threshold, leading to a persistent grass-dominated state. Studying regime shifts on decadal to centennial scales can help bridge the gap between ecology and palaeoecology by providing a robust basis for assessing vulnerability, setting restoration priorities and managing novel peatland states. Postprint

This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (grant number: NE/L501852/1) with additional support from the NERC Radiocarbon Facility (Allocation 1934.1015). Further seismic profiles and the CALYPSO long core were acquired within the frame of the French ECLIPSE programme with additional financial support from NERC, SAMS and the University of St Andrews. Fjords are recognised as hotspots for the burial and long-term storage of carbon (C) and potentially provide a significant climate regulation service over multiple timescales. Understanding the magnitude of marine sedimentary C stores and the processes which govern their development is fundamental to understanding the role of the coastal ocean in the global C cycle. In this study, we use the mid-latitude fjords of Scotland as a natural laboratory to further develop methods to quantify these marine sedimentary C stores on both the individual fjord and national scale. Targeted geophysical and geochemical analysis has allowed the quantification of sedimentary C stocks for a number of mid-latitude fjords and, coupled with upscaling techniques based on fjord classification, has generated the first full national sedimentary C inventory for a fjordic system. The sediments within these mid-latitude fjords hold 640.7 ± 46 Mt of C split between 295.6±52 and 345.1 ± 39 Mt of organic and inorganic C, respectively. When compared, these marine mid-latitude sedimentary C stores are of similar magnitude to their terrestrial equivalents, with the exception of the Scottish peatlands, which hold significantly more C. However, when area normalised comparisons are made, these mid-latitude fjords are significantly more effective as C stores than their terrestrial counterparts, including Scottish peatlands. The C held within Scotland’s coastal marine sediments has been largely overlooked as a significant component of the nation’s natural capital; such coastal C stores are likely to be key to understanding and constraining improved global C budgets. Publisher PDF

Recent changes in arctic vegetation might not be driven by climate change alone. Legacies of human activities have received little attention as a contributing factor. We examine the extent to which traditional human activities (hunting, herding, fire, wood extraction, and agriculture) have had lasting effects on arctic woody plant communities and therefore might continue to affect biome-wide responses to climate change. Evidence suggests that legacies are likely to be evident across meters to hundreds of kilometers and for decades, centuries, and millennia. The evidence, however, is currently sparse, and we highlight the potential to develop systematic assessments through a circumarctic collaboratory consisting of a network of interdisciplinary field sites, standardized protocols, participatory research, and new approaches. We suggest that human activities should be brought into consideration to increase our understanding of arctic vegetation dynamics in general and to assess woody plant responses to climate change in particular.

SUMMARYCollaborative management is a widely accepted means of resolving conflict amongst natural resource stakeholders. Power sharing is central to most conceptualizations of collaboration, but theoretical insights about power are only rarely used to interrogate collaborative processes. Agenda-setting theory was used to analyse cases of collaborative deer management in England, Scotland and Indiana (USA). Collaborative management agendas across scales and social contexts were found to be primarily set by contextual factors, particularly stakeholders drawing on specific cultures and policies, and pre-defining issues. These findings highlight significant gaps between the theory and practice of collaboration. If, in practice, substantial power has been wielded in advance, the capacity of subsequent collaborative processes to share power amongst stakeholders may be severely limited. To provide opportunities for differing cultural perspectives to be expressed and challenged, convenors of collaborative processes therefore need to be aware of and reflexive upon existing power relationships and structures.

Conservation conflicts are increasing on a global scale and instruments for reconciling competing interests are urgently needed. Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a structured, decision-support process that can facilitate dialogue between groups with differing interests and incorporate human and environmental dimensions of conflict. MCDA is a structured and transparent method of breaking down complex problems and incorporating multiple objectives. The value of this process for addressing major challenges in conservation conflict management is that MCDA helps in setting realistic goals; entails a transparent decision-making process; and addresses mistrust, differing world views, cross-scale issues, patchy or contested information, and inflexible legislative tools. Overall we believe MCDA provides a valuable decision-support tool, particularly for increasing awareness of the effects of particular values and choices for working toward negotiated compromise, although an awareness of the effect of methodological choices and the limitations of the method is vital before applying it in conflict situations.

This work was conducted with funding from The Woodland Trust. Favourable microclimates are predicted to buffer fragmented populations against the effects of environmental change, but ecological timeseries are often too short to establish the extent to which such microsites facilitate population persistence through multiple climate shifts. We investigate the effects of microclimatic heterogeneity on woodland resilience through millennial climate and disturbance shifts near northwest European woodland range limits. We use palaeoecological data from northern Scotland to study the effects of fragmentation on community composition and diversity in a potentially favourable microclimate, and compare palynological timeseries of tree abundance from five sites to assess the effects of favourable (low-lying sheltered) versus more marginal (higher altitude) settings on population persistence and stability. The sheltered site shows persistence of tree cover through Holocene climatic and anthropogenic shifts, including climatically-driven regional woodland contraction around 4400 cal BP (calendar years before present), when surviving woods became compositionally differentiated into upland pine and low-lying deciduous communities. A favourable microclimate can thus buffer woodlands against environmental shifts and increase continuity of canopy cover, but it does not generate stable communities. Compositional reorganisation is an essential stress response mechanism and should be accommodated by conservation managers. The replacement of deciduous taxa by Pinus sylvestris after 1060 cal BP represents the decoupling of pine distribution from climate drivers by management intervention. As a result, current microrefugial woodland composition reflects late Holocene human intervention. Alternative models of community composition and behaviour from palaeoecology provide a stronger foundation for managing microsite communities than relict woods in contrasting environmental settings. Postprint

Quantifying sedimentary carbon stocks in the coastal ocean is key to improving our understanding of long-term storage of carbon in the coastal ocean and to further constrain the global carbon cycle. Here we present a methodological approach which combines seismic geophysics and geochemical measurements to quantitatively estimate the total stock of carbon held within marine sediment. Through the application of this methodology to Loch Sunart a sea loch (fjord) on the west coast of Scotland we have created the first sedimentary carbon inventory for a fjordic system. The sediment of Loch Sunart holds 26.88 ± 0.52 Mt of carbon split between 11.05 ± 0.23 Mt and 15.02 ± 0.35 Mt of organic and inorganic carbon respectively. This quantitative estimate of carbon stored in Loch Sunart in significantly higher than previous estimates. Through comparison to Scottish peatland carbon stocks we have determined that Loch Sunart on a per are basis is a significantly more effective store of carbon. This initial work supports the concept that fjords are important environments for the burial and long-term storage of carbon and therefore should be considered as unique environments while considering coastal carbon stocks.

As a palaeo-ecologist, working with historians has made me look critically at the strengths and limitations of my discipline. Resisting the temptation to defer to documents that, however partial or biased, remain far closer to human experience of the land than any pollen sequence, is essential (see Davies and Watson 2007; Hamilton et al. 2009). Richard Tipping (2004) recognized this lure when he distinguished two philosophical approaches to interpreting historic landscape change. These are my starting point for offering an environmental archaeologist's response to the archaeological and interdisciplinary challenges discussed by Toby Pillatt. First, Tipping defined a ‘confirmatory’ approach, in which palaeo-ecologists have sought correlations with written records, but only to confirm documented events, not to challenge them. In this, they have usually relied on selective readings and secondary, often generalized, historical sources. Reading this paper, it is evident that this is not only a one-way process, as those discussing human experience of the environment have been led by models and issues from the environmental sciences, including contemporary concerns. Indeed, a reader of Dawson's (2009) history of Scotland's weather and climate may be forgiven for thinking that all weather was bad weather, with possibly unfavourable expectations for human experience.

The long timeframes involved in woodland regeneration and adaptation introduce considerable uncertainty into management and conservation planning as most ecological datasets span only a small part of ecosystem dynamics. This is a particular concern in vulnerable habitats, such as Atlantic birch-oak woods in north-western Britain, where range edge populations are at risk from herbivory and climate change. This study combines historical palaeoecology and stakeholder observations to assess how multiple perspectives can inform existing models, expectations and goals for Atlantic woodland management. Long-term evidence for changing woodland composition addresses stakeholder uncertainties over the currently restricted distribution of oak, alder and hazel. Oak has remained a secondary component of birch-dominated woods and habitat definitions based on oak are too narrow to ensure sustainability. Birch has survived numerous periods of climatic and biotic adversity and shows the strongest positive response to historic reductions in grazing pressure. This has led to a pulse of regeneration since c. AD 1900, so current restoration efforts are taking place within the strongest period of woodland expansion in the last c. 500 years. Positive and negative cultural legacies are evident and intervention is considered a necessary restoration tool. Managed grazing at key stages of habitat development can support continued recruitment and regeneration. A more flexible and integrated management approach is recommended. Long-term ecology can provide direction and address uncertainties, while ecological and stakeholder evidence provide the detail necessary to develop effective management that incorporates ecosystem perspectives. This can help shape management strategies that balance possible conflicts over perceived short-term ‘damage’ to secure longer-term processes. Learning based on multiple temporal perspectives has the potential to contribute to conservation and restoration planning and practice. These principles are more widely applicable in adaptive management.

Uplands around the world are facing significant social, economic and environmental changes, and decision-makers need to better understand what the future may hold if they are to adapt and maintain upland goods and services. This paper draws together all major research comprising eight studies that have used scenarios to describe possible futures for UK uplands. The paper evaluates which scenarios are perceived by stakeholders to be most likely and desirable, and assesses the benefits and drawbacks of the scenario methods used in UK uplands to date. Stakeholders agreed that the most desirable and likely scenario would be a continuation of hill farming (albeit at reduced levels) based on cross-compliance with environmental measures. The least desirable scenario is a withdrawal of government financial support for hill farming. Although this was deemed by stakeholders to be the least likely scenario, the loss of government support warrants close attention due to its potential implications for the local economy. Stakeholders noted that the environmental implications of this scenario are much less clear-cut. As such, there is an urgent need to understand the full implications of this scenario, so that upland stakeholders can adequately prepare, and policy-makers can better evaluate the likely implications of different policy options. The paper concludes that in future, upland scenario research needs to: (1) better integrate in-depth and representative participation from stakeholders during both scenario development and evaluation; and (2) make more effective use of visualisation techniques and simulation models. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper presents a new approach for understanding the effects of economic factors on biodiversity change over the long run. We illustrate this approach by studying the determinants of biodiversity change in upland Scotland from 1600 to 2000. The measure of biodiversity used is a proxy for plant species diversity, constructed using statistical analysis of palaeoecological (pollen) data. We assemble a new data set of historical land use and prices over 11 sites during this 400-year period; this data set also includes information on changes in agricultural technology, climate and land ownership. A panel model is then estimated that controls for both supply and demand shifts over time. A main result is that prices that act in our model as a proxy for livestock numbers do indeed impact on biodiversity, with higher prices leading to lower biodiversity.

A methodology is described by which spatial patterns of land use were reconstructed from pollen analyses on anthropogenic sediments at a recently excavated early Neolithic timber ‘hall’ in north east Scotland. The anthropogenic sediments were from a deep, small diameter pit within the building. They present numerous taphonomic and interpretative challenges to the analyst, but from this type of deposit, the power to estimate quantitatively the vegetation structure around the archaeological site makes such difficult deposits very significant. A rigorous methodology is firstly described, therefore, by which confidence in ecological interpretation can be established. Secondly, the source of pollen in the deposit is evaluated. Thirdly, the possible pollen source area and structure of the surrounding vegetation are estimated by quantitative simulation modelling. Finally, these analyses are compared with region-scale pollen analyses from nearby conventional wetland deposits with much larger pollen source areas. The pollen assemblages recovered probably reflect land uses adjacent to the ‘hall’ and up to 2.5 km around. Cereal cultivation was the most important land use immediately around the ‘hall’, possibly grown between stands of scrub Corylus (hazel) woodland. These intensive but local-scale land uses cannot be discerned in region-scale pollen analyses.

1. Economic forces are recognized as an important driving factor behind current biodiversity losses. This study investigates whether such factors have been important in determining one measure of biodiversity change over the ‘long run’ – in our case, 400 years – for upland sites in Scotland. 2. A combination of palaeoecological, historical and economic methods is used to construct and then analyse a database of factors contributing to changes in plant diversity over time for 11 upland sites. 3. Using an instrumental variables panel model, we find livestock prices, our proxy for grazing pressure, to be a statistically significant determinant of diversity change, with higher grazing pressures resulting in lower diversity values on average, although site abandonment is also found to result in a fall in plant diversity. Technological change, such as the introduction of new animal breeds, was not found to be a statistically significant determinant. 4. Using later period data (post 1860) on livestock numbers at the parish (local) level, we were able to confirm the main result noted above (3) in terms of the effects of higher grazing pressures on plant diversity. 5. Synthesis and applications . This study shows how data from very different disciplines can be combined to address questions relevant to contemporary conservation and understanding. This novel, interdisciplinary approach provides new insights into the role of economic factors as a driver of biodiversity loss in the uplands. Biodiversity levels have varied considerably over 400 years, partly as a function of land management, suggesting that establishing baselines or ‘natural’ target levels for biodiversity is likely to be problematic. Changes in livestock grazing pressures brought about by changes in prices had statistically significant effects on estimated plant diversity, as did land abandonment. This suggests that long-term management of upland areas for the conservation of diversity should focus on grazing pressures as a key policy attribute. Another policy implication is that drastic cuts in grazing pressures – such as might occur under current reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy – can have adverse biodiversity consequences.

Marginality and climatic determinism are common themes in upland archaeology, particularly in northern Britain, but there is increasing evidence to challenge these assumptions, notably in the palynological record. An alternative model for land-use in a highland valley is developed using three high spatial-resolution pollen sequences from north-west Scotland. In spatial terms, land-use was shaped by the landscape but also structured to make the most productive use of the small, fragmented areas of better soil in a peat-dominated environment. Climate change alone provides an inadequate explanation for land-use dynamics. A combination of careful site selection, resource management, and social interactions buffered farmers from risks posed by upland conditions, whilst allowing the flexibility to respond to opportunities created by environmental and socio-economic change, particularly during the early Bronze Age, Bronze Age/Iron Age transition, Iron Age and ‘Little Ice Age’. Implications for the perception of upland farming, for the prediction of responses to environmental risk, and for the expected character and survival of archaeological evidence for past upland and mountain-farming systems are evaluated.

Aim We aim to compare fine resolution pollen data from a former seasonal pasture with historical evidence for grazing and woodland use. We discuss the complexities and benefits of integrating qualitative and quantitative information, and the implications for studies of past wood–grazing interactions and their relevance to current conservation management. Location Corries is an abandoned farm township in Scotland's Western Highlands. Methods Two sources were used: (1) pollen evidence from a former seasonal pasture, analysed at c. 20-year intervals and dated using 14C and 210Pb, provides a c. 1100-year local vegetation and land-use history; (2) written sources document resource regulation and changing socio-economic circumstances at local to national scales over the last c. 400 years. Results Each source records woodland and livestock management at different spatial and temporal scales: written evidence provides a clearer understanding of general (estate) rather than farm-scale changes, while small pollen basins record localized woodland–grazing dynamics, which can be difficult to extrapolate to the landscape scale. Both sources indicate a dynamic wood–grazing balance and together provide clearer evidence for incentives and drivers controlling this relationship. The first palynological phase of woodland incursion (adc. 1210–1490) pre-dates the surviving written records, but a second (adc. 1680–1760) occurs during a period of increasing market value for cattle, when farmers may have increased grazing despite regulations to protect woods. The site is not representative of grazing intensification associated with the introduction of extensive sheep farming because the farmer protected the woods (adc. 1760–1880) until they were cleared (adc. 1880–1920) for quarrying (ad 1885–1904), which accounts for the limited palynological evidence for grazing. Main conclusions Written evidence for past stocking levels is too fragmentary and ambiguous to allow long-term quantitative analysis, but a local historical context is important for interpreting local pollen records. Management decisions that determined grazing–woodland interactions were shaped by changing values, markets, agricultural practices and regulatory structures, which can result in nonlinear relationships between stocking levels and woodland continuity. Many woods were managed for multiple purposes in the past and promoting natural processes or pursuing pre-anthropogenic baselines will result in the erosion of cultural features that have shaped present landscape values.

Pollen, microscopic charcoal, palaeohydrolog- ical and dendrochronological analyses are applied to a radiocarbon and tephrochronologically dated mid Holocene (ca. 8500-3000 cal B.P.) peat sequence with abundant fossil Pinus (pine) wood. The Pinus populations on peat fluctuated considerably over the period in question. Colo- nisation by Pinus from ca. 7900-7600 cal B.P. appears to have had no specific environmental trigger; it was probably determined by the rate of migration from particular popu- lations. The second phase, at ca. 5000-4400 cal B.P., was facilitated by anthropogenic interference that reduced competition from other trees. The pollen record shows two Pinus declines. The first at ca. 6200-5500 cal B.P. was caused by a series of rapid and frequent climatic shifts. The second, the so-called pine decline, was very gradual (ca. 4200-3300 cal B.P.) at Loch Farlary and may not have been related to climate change as is often supposed. Low intensity but sustained grazing pressures were more important. Throughout the mid Holocene, the frequency and intensity of burning in these open Pinus-Calluna woods were probably highly sensitive to hydrological (climatic) change. Axe marks on several trees are related to the mid to late Bronze Age, i.e., long after the trees had died.

Many upland environments are valued for their openness, which is often actively maintained by extensive pastoral agriculture. Documentary sources indicate the complexity and longevity of regulations designed to protect the hill grazing resource from over-exploitation but these systems leave relatively few traces on the ground. Consequently pollen analysis is an important method for establishing the impact of centuries of grazing on the quality of hill pastures. This is demonstrated at Wether Hill, Northumberland, where a pollen sequence details changes in vegetation composition and diversity over the last c. 1,500 years. These are correlated with historical evidence over the last c. 800years for a more complete understanding of the socioeconomic context that governed the use of hill grazing. Changes in grazing regimes had a profound influence on these hill pastures, contributing to permanent changes in the relative abundance of heather, grasses and herbs, and causing a severe decline in habitat d...

Summary The former woodlands west of Loch Affric are described from pollen analyses. Related records of climate change from the analysis of lake-level change and peat growth are also presented to explore the importance of climate in driving woodland change. The woodlands were more diverse than extant pinewoods to the east, with a very considerable deciduous component. They developed in the early Holocene period, and brief periods of range expansion and contraction are recorded within a pattern of overall woodland stability over thousands of years, despite the high frequency and intensity of climatic excursions, until a fi nal collapse in all woodland communities occurred at around 4000 calibrated years ago (BP). This collapse had a climatic origin, but the precise character of the climate change is ill-defi ned.

This paper examines the importance of palynological site selection criteria, speci”cally basin size, for the detection of vegetation mosaics and small- or local-scale human activity within a spatially diverse, mosaic landscape. Using a site selection strategy which recognizes landscape patchiness, pollen analyses from three small peat basins (10–56 m diameter) in an open, exposed upland valley (>250 m OD) provide records which are sensitive to local vegetation mosaics and small-scale, localized agriculture. The results indicate c. 400014C years (4400 cal. years) of land use, with spatial and temporal variations in the valley. Contrasts between the sequences suggest that local pollen production remains an important component of the pollen rain deposited in small peat basins, even in open environments; this is especially true of palynological‘agricultural indicators’. By comparison, sites with regional pollen source areas underestimate the spatial diversity of the upland landscape, and are insensitive to small-scale human activity in an environment where the fragmentary distribution of soils suitable for agriculture favoured a small-scale, dispersed pattern of farming. It is therefore essential to match the spatial resolution of pollen records with the grain size or scale of variations in the environment under investigation in order to sense the scale of mosaics in vegetation and agriculture within patchy landscapes.

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through the Rural Economy and Land-Use Programme (RES-229-27-0003). 1. Significant effort is being made to develop more inclusive and systematic decision-making frameworks in ecology, but these have yet to include palaeoecology. Doing so would address critical questions about long-term ecological processes (spanning >50 years). 2. This paper outlines the main barriers to the integration of long-term ecological data (LTE) into management. Using two UK upland case studies, it uses a choice experiment to assess the value placed on LTE by ecological researchers, policymakers and practitioners. Respondents were able to consider how selecting or excluding different sources of evidence might affect management decisions and their environmental outcomes. 3. The results suggest that LTE has the potential to become a valued part of the evidence base for guiding land-management decisions. 4. Synthesis and applications. Placing more emphasis on site-based approaches can help translate this potential into practice by demonstrating the practical benefits of using LTE. By working with managers to address site-based issues, palaeoecology can provide additionalinsights into ecosystem dynamics and critical thresholds. Using LTE can also improve conservation effectiveness by ensuring that both rapid and lagged responses are anticipated and indicating the range of variability against which management responses can be evaluated. Preprint Preprint

Although palaeoecologists have published papers on the relevance of long-term data to conservation for over 20 years [1,2], an accessible book that brings examples together and relates them to contemporary conservation issues for a non-technical audience is long overdue. Gillson's contribution has a broad, international target audience, ranging from researchers and senior undergraduate and postgraduate students in a palaeoecology, conservation, and natural resource management, to conservation practitioners, educators, and policymakers.

Summary This paper appraises the role of prehistoric human societies in modifying the natural woodland biodiversity of several regions throughout Scotland. It draws attention to the likelihood that, contrary to popular belief, biodiversity was enhanced by interactions between agricultural communities and woodlands. The possible purposefulness of such interactions is discussed. Mindful of the present concern to re-establish ‘native’ woodlands in many parts of northern Britain, we then review three approaches to the identification of native tree types in Scotland, and conclude that insufficient attention in reafforestation schemes is being paid to (a) the palaeoecological record as a record of native woodland or (b) the likely former high taxonomic diversity of woodlands. Both these failings will lead to the creation of new woodlands lacking in species diversity.

1. Priority question exercises are becoming an increasingly common tool to frame future agendas in conservation and ecological science, used to identify research foci which are relevant to the needs of the scientific community and which also have high policy and conservation relevance. 2. To date there has been no coherent synthesis of key questions and priority research areas for palaeoecology, which combines biological, geochemical and molecular techniques in order to reconstruct ecological and environmental systems far into the past. 3. We adapted a well-established methodology to identify 50 priority research questions in palaeoecology. We used a set of criteria that were designed to identify realistic and achievable research goals, and selected questions from a pool submitted by the international palaeoecology research community and relevant policy practitioners. Questions are not ranked by priority but are grouped thematically, and are generally focussed on the late Cenozoic onwards (past c. 65 Ma). 4. The major difference in our methodology compared to other, similar exercises was the integration of online participation both before and during the workshop, representing an important development for increasing engagement and visibility. 5. The questions selected are structured around six themes: human-environment interactions in the Anthropocene; biodiversity, conservation, and novel ecosystems; biodiversity over long timescales; ecosystem processes and biogeochemical cycling; comparing, combining and synthesising information from multiple records; and methodological approaches to palaeoecology. 6. Future opportunities in palaeoecology are related to improved incorporation of uncertainty into reconstructions, an enhanced understanding of ecological and evolutionary dynamics and processes, and the continued application of long-term data for better-informed landscape management. 7. SYNTHESIS: The 50 priority questions selected in this exercise present palaeoecological science as a vibrant and thriving discipline, and highlight its vast potential for resolving both pure (e.g. theoretical) and applied (e.g. environmental) research questions directly related to ecological science and global change.

The challenges of integrated, adaptive and ecosystem management are leading government agencies to adopt participatory modes of engagement. Collaborative governance is a form of participation in which stakeholders co-produce goals and strategies and share responsibilities and resources. We assess the potential and challenges of collaborative governance as a mechanism to provide an integrated, ecosystem approach to natural resource management, using red deer in Scotland as a case study. Collaborative Deer Management Groups offer a well-established example of a ‘bridging organisation’, intended to reduce costs and facilitate decision making and learning across institutions and scales. We examine who initiates collaborative processes and why, what roles different actors adopt and how these factors influence the outcomes, particularly at a time of changing values, management and legislative priorities. Our findings demonstrate the need for careful consideration of where and how shared responsibility might be best implemented and sustained as state agencies often remain key to the process, despite the partnership intention. Differing interpretations between agencies and landowners of the degree of autonomy and division of responsibilities involved in ‘collaboration’ can create tension, while the diversity of landowner priorities brings additional challenges for defining shared goals in red deer management and in other cases. Effective maintenance depends on appropriate role allocation and adoption of responsibilities, definition of convergent values and goals, and establishing communication and trust in institutional networks. Options that may help private stakeholders offset the costs of accepting responsibility for delivering public benefits need to be explicitly addressed to build capacity and support adaptation. This study indicates that collaborative governance has the potential to help reconcile statutory obligations with stakeholder empowerment. The potential of collaboration to reduce the costs of sustainable management remains contentious and, in times of increasing resource constraints, the potential mismatch between resource investment and anticipated goals is likely to become a critical issue, which may challenge the goals and capacity of the state and existing managers.

Environmental history prides itself on being explicitly interdisciplinary. This is usually considered to mean the fostering of dialogue ‘between humanistic scholarship, environmental science, and other disciplines’.1 This position has emerged largely because of the subject’s obvious relationship with environmental and biological/ecological sciences, which have long dominated investigations into the natural world. Once documentary historians began to ‘discover’ and discuss the relationship between society and the environment, it was natural that they should incorporate the findings and some of the methods of ecology in particular. One need only think of the titles of two important environmental history texts — Ecological Imperialism by Alfred Crosby and The Ecological Indian by Shepard Krech — to note the explicit link, particularly in the United States. Crosby is a historian and Krech an anthropologist. Some have moved the other way: Jared Diamond, an evolutionary biologist and physiologist, has earned international acclaim for his syntheses of human history, placing biology at the explanatory heart of key historical questions; biologist Daniel Botkin believes that his subject cannot be divorced from human cultural activity, past and present. All have attempted to integrate more traditional historical narratives with scientific findings, achieving impressive results.2

Pollen analyses are presented spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages at two sites within one river catchment in north east Scotland, one upland and one lowland site, to test the hypothesis that subsistence agricultural communities relocated their activities in response to major climatic deterioration at the end of the Bronze Age. Such responses were identified, involving the probable cessation of arable farming around the upland site and increases in the intensity of anthropogenic impacts around the lowland site. These changes are consistent with a model that posits a restructuring of agricultural activities, but are not considered indicative of settlement abandonment in the face of climatic stress.

This paper presents an econometric analysis of the relationship between economic and environmental factors and biodiversity change in Scotland over the period 1600-2000. Our main hypothesis is that economic development, as captured by changes in prices, technological improvements and management intensity, is a significant determinant of long-run biodiversity change. The measure of biodiversity used here is an estimate of plant species diversity, constructed by the authors using paleo-ecological analysis of pollen remains. We assemble a new data set of historical land use and price data over 11 sites during this 400 year period; this data set also includes information on long-run climate change and extreme weather events, as well as changes in agricultural technology, land tenure and land ownership. A panel model is then estimated, which controls for both supply and demand shifts over time. Our main result is that agricultural prices, which determine livestock numbers, do indeed impact on biodiversity, with higher prices leading to lower diversity scores, due to their influence on production. No significant direct effects of either changes in technology or climate are detected.