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Read in: EnglishCymraeg
Thanks to Training to ID a rare moss species, numbers at one site where it is found in Scotland, tripled in just one afternoon!
In 2003 Aspen Bristle-moss, which was thought to be extinct in the UK, was rediscovered by a chance finding. Now, thanks to a team effort – moss experts, landowners and volunteers discovered 3 times the amount of Aspen Bristle-moss at one site. This brilliant find led to the known population of this rare moss doubling in Scotland in a single afternoon.
This amazing feat was thanks to a training session organised by our Resilience and Recovery, Helping Rare Species Adapt to a Changing World Project Manager, Sam Jones, where volunteers were taught how to ID this marvellous moss.
The elusive epiphyte (a plant which grows on the surface of another plant) is particularly tricky to identify, with tiny features that distinguish it from the other mosses that can be found growing alongside it.
This event, helping uncover hidden populations of Aspen Bristle-moss gives hope for it’s future.
Read on below as Sam explains more about the day and this special species.
We’ve recently started working on a new species in the Cairngorms. Aspen Bristle-moss Nyholmiella gymnostoma, is the first non-vascular plant I’ve worked on.
The Cairngorms is special for supporting some of the UK’s only remaining Aspen Populus tremula woodland. Aspen Bristle-moss is an epiphyte (a plant which grows on the surface of another plant), which as the name suggests, specialises on Aspen. Therefore the only 3 remaining populations of the moss in the UK, are all in or near the Cairngorms National Park.
On 6 November last year, we had our first day looking at Aspen Bristle-moss in Deeside. A total of 12 of us — moss experts, local land managers, and keen volunteers — spent around 4 hours staring very closes through hand lenses at Aspen bark.
Our experts taught us exactly which tiny features to use to distinguish these mosses from all the others we might see on Aspen bark. We learned about the importance of wetting the mosses before trying to identify them.
Then we walked all over the site which is a very rare dense exclusively Aspen woodland covering around 5 hectares. About 20 of these trees were known to support Aspen Bristle Moss, nearly half of the total known UK population. On our sweep we increased the population on site to 49, nearly doubling the total known population in 1 afternoon alone.
This incredible little moss grows exclusively on Aspen trees, and is only known to exist at three sites in the UK – all in the Cairngorms area of Scotland.
It seemed a logical choice to focus on such an understudied local specialist species. While working to protect this moss, we are also hunting for and protecting other rare Aspen epiphytes, such as Blunt-leaved Bristle-moss Nyholmiella obtusifolia, Showy Bristle-moss Lewinskya speciosa, and Bark Sulphur Fire-dot Lichen Caloplaca flavorubescens.
We are early in our journey towards protecting these species. Alongside preserving and enhancing Aspen woodland, work led by the Cairngorms National Park and Trees for Life, we are focused on learning the status of these species, and what we can do to protect them.
The first step for Aspen Bristle-moss (and all these under-studied epiphytes) is to update our records.
In 2000 it was thought to be extinct in the UK but has since been rediscovered at 3 sites. It takes quite the specialism to record it, and so there is a good chance some populations remain undiscovered. So, our first objective is to re-survey the 3 known populations, and to get people out and looking for it across Aspen woods more widely.
This year we’ll be surveying the other 2 populations, getting more people trained up to look for and appreciate these rare species, and developing a better idea for how it is doing. We’ll also be encouraging trained volunteers to check Aspen trees whenever they can, as it is very possible many sites remain undiscovered.
As our understanding of these species expands, we may start to look at what can be done to protect these tiny remnant populations. Obviously, we must continue to promote and protect Aspen woodlands. We also may look into transplanting mosses between trees or assisting their colonisation into new sites.
We will have to see what develops as we work to protect and promote these often-overlooked tiny green gems.
We conducted these surveys on NatureScot sites, and would like to thank them for supporting this project.
Photos taken by Gus Routledge.
The effort Greena Moor Nature Reserve management team put in place to save the Three-lobed Water Crowfoot.
Discover 4 new walk ideas and Scottish spring adventure inspiration from Plantlife Scotland’s Communications and Policy Officer, Erin Shott.
Air pollution often poses the biggest danger to internationally rare habitats and nitrogen gases have the potential to destroy our temperate rainforests.
Dave Lamacraft
Dave Lamacraft, Plantlife’s Lichen and Bryophyte Specialist, heads out to discover a wealth of extraordinary lichens which call Wales’ rainforests home.
I’m lucky enough to have worked in our temperate rainforests for well over a decade now, and although much of our recent work here at Plantlife has had a focus on rainforest areas of England, through our LOST project in the Lake District and the Building Resilience project in South-West England, both funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, I’ve had the opportunity to get out into some of our Welsh rainforest in past weeks and been reminded just how special they are.
The first of these visits was to the National Trust’s Dolmelynllyn estate at Ganllwyd to look at some transplants of Lungwort lichens that we undertook 5 years ago. This was initially an attempt to rescue these lichens from an old Ash tree that was literally clothed in Lungwort lichens, of three varieties, that blew down in a summer gale. Transplanting these big leafy species is relatively straightforward to do in practical terms but hard to get right, the skill is in finding the right niche and one that’s away from the chomping teeth of slugs.
Success is far from guaranteed, and the majority of these transplants had succumbed to slug browsing. There were some notable successes though, with this ‘lob scrob’ Lobarina scrobiculata thriving on a Sycamore, all the better as this is one of the rarer lungwort lichens in Wales. The area where this was transplanted has spectacular communities of lichens on old Ash, Oak and Sycamore trees, probably the best display of lungwort lichens in Wales with abundant Tree Lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria, Parchment Lichen Ricasolia amplissima, ‘Stinky Stictas’ Sticta fuliginosa and Sticta sylvatica and Blue Jelly-skin Leptogium cyanescens.
Another site visit took me to a remote woodland near Trawsfynydd where we’re helping Natural Resources Wales work out how best to manage this woodland. Although only a few miles up the road from Ganllwyd this is a very different woodland to Dolmelynllyn being at higher altitude and exposed to higher levels of rainfall this favours different communities of lichen and bryophyte with what could be considered our ‘cloud-forest’ lichens and a rich ‘hyperoceanic’ bryophyte flora including many rare species.
Image by Dave Lamacraft
This has also reminded me just how diverse our rainforest is, in the same that way that no two wetlands, estuaries or mountains are the same, no bit of temperate rainforest is the same. They all differ according to geology, topography, aspect, climate, history, management etc; our temperate rainforest in South-West England is quite different to that in Western Scotland, with Wales somewhere in between. They are especially influenced by ‘oceanicity’ – the degree to which proximity to the Atlantic influences climate – and broadly speaking they are drier and sunnier to the south and much wetter to the north.
This basically means that you’ll never see the same things twice and there’s a lifetime of exploration to be had. I’d urge anyone to grab a hand lens (by no means essential, but definitely helps appreciate the small things) and head out to explore.
Agricultural grasslands dominate Wales’ rural landscape. Finding ways to restore species-rich habitats to farms is a priority for Plantlife Cymru.
Chris Jones, the Warden of Kenfig National Nature Reserve, recently found the very rare fungus, during a routine survey.
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