Rethink our relationship with nature to avoid worst of climate change and pandemics Society needs to re-think its relationship with the natural world if we are to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and pandemics, the James Hutton Institute has urged in the 2022 episode of BBC Scotland’s Resolutions programme. In the broadcast, filmed at the Institute’s Glensaugh Research Farm and at IGS Ltd in Invergowrie, Hutton Chief Executive Prof Colin Campbell and Deputy, Prof Deb Roberts, look back at the past two years and the lessons we have learned. Both climate change and COVID are symptoms of overconsumption and a world system that is broken, they argue, reflecting on the role of science in developing new vaccines and medicines to tackle the COVID pandemic. “One of the good things about the last two years and the changes to the way we’ve been living brought about by COVID is a greater awareness of nature as we’ve walked, and run, and cycled in all seasons and in all weathers,” they maintain. The programme also looked at Hutton research on the relationship between society, climate, nature and the land. “At Glensaugh we can study how land management supports wildlife, provides clean water, prevents floods and stores carbon in our soils, our vegetation, our trees and peatland, as well as providing food. “Farms can harvest energy from the wind and from water, and we have shown here that it is feasible to use renewable energy to create hydrogen fuel for our tractors and for the homes in the farm. It’s a virtuous cycle, from water back to water again,” notes Prof Campbell. A key message arising from the programme is how new thinking and believing in our own ingenuity can get us through many crises. “Science is now clear that we, too, need to re-think our relationship with the natural world, if we’re going to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and avoid pandemics. “We also need new ways of growing food that puts no more pressure on the land and spares land for nature. At IGS Limited in Invergowrie, we have a very different farm, a vertical farm that uses less space and can grow different things in different ways in different places. “These new ways provide us with the means of growing a more diverse range of foods locally, avoiding imports, and also providing a fresh and nutritious source of food all year round. “We are lucky at the Hutton to be in a position to do research that makes a real difference”, Profs Campbell and Roberts conclude. The programme is available to watch below and it can be also watched on iPlayer. Loss of tree species has cumulative impact on biodiversity New research by Institute scientists and partners in the UK and Portugal has found that diseases affecting various UK tree species have a multiplying effect on the loss of associated biodiversity. The study published in the Journal of Ecology reveals that the decline of ash and oak trees may affect more species than just those that use oak or only use ash as their sole habitat. In the UK, the common ash hosts 45 species found only on ash trees, while sessile and pedunculate oaks host 326 species exclusive to oak trees. However, 141 other species use ash and oak as alternative habitats and depend on these two tree species only. If both ash and oak were to be lost, the number of species at risk would rise to 512. Lead author of the study Dr Ruth Mitchell, an ecologist at Hutton explains the numbers: “When a plant pest or pathogen kills a plant, particularly when it results in widespread loss of one plant species, it also impacts on those species such as insects, mosses, lichens, mammals, birds and fungi that use that plant for feeding, for nesting or a, living space.” The impact of plant pests and pathogens on associated biodiversity is, however, rarely considered when risk assessments for plant pests and pathogens new to the UK are carried out, she adds. “This work shows that such impacts may be considerable, especially where multiple host plants that support the same biodiversity are lost, which is what we’re seeing with the number of different diseases currently impacting the UK’s trees.” Many species use ash, oak in conjunction with other tree species which should mean they are resilient to the loss of ash and oak through their ability to fall back on other species. However, when the researchers looked at 24 mixed ash and oak woodlands within the UK, they found that only 21% of the sites could continue to support species that use ash and oak if ash and oak were lost. This was because the other tree species that would support this biodiversity were not present at the site, although the site conditions were often suitable for them to grow. The authors therefore suggest that in risk assessments, the wider ecosystem should be considered. Higher impact scores should be given to new pests and pathogens whose hosts occupy the same ecosystem as other host plant species already impacted by such threats. The work reinforces a major theme in recent guidance on sustainable forestry, which advocates increasing the species diversity in multipurpose and conservation woodlands to enhance their resilience. Dr Mitchell sums up the risk of ignoring this finding: “Current pest and pathogen risk assessment approaches that ignore the cumulative, cascading effects shown in this study may allow an insidious, mostly overlooked, driver of biodiversity loss to continue.” Defra Chief Plant Health Officer, Professor Nicola Spence is in no doubt of its importance. “This work reiterates the importance of protecting our native trees. It confirms that the value of our interconnected ecosystems is often more than may immediately meet the eye, and the importance of intelligent woodland management plans to support resilience. Such combinatorial analysis assists our understanding and further development of toolkits,” she says. Paper:Mitchell, Ruth J; Bellamy, Paul E; Broome, Alice; Ellis, Chris J; Hewison, Richard L; Iason, Glen R; Littlewood, Nick A; Newey, Scott; Pozsgai, Gabor; Ray, Duncan; Stockan, Jenni A; Stokes, Victoria; Taylor, Andy FS. Cumulative impact assessments of multiple host species loss from plant diseases show disproportionate reductions in associated biodiversity . Journal of Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.13798. 8 Hutton Highlights February 2022 9 Comments?
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