Biodiversity and ecosystem function responses to woodland creation

This project aims to understand biodiversity and ecosystem function responses to different woodland creation methods.

We are working at The Carbon Community experiment in Wales to understand how aboveground and belowground biodiversity responds to forest type (Sitka spruce monoculture vs mixed native broadleaf), soil microbiome inoculation and enhanced weathering. Focussing on invertebrates, we are assessing biodiversity outcomes across the forest matrix from the soil to canopy. We are co-designing woodland establishment experiments with the Wychwood Forest Trust in Oxfordshire and Highlands Rewilding in Scotland. These will allow us to compare natural regeneration and planting as methods of woodland establishment and consequences for carbon sequestration and biodiversity colonisation. We also aim to explore the efficacy of mycorrhizal inoculation and compare this to natural mycorrhizal colonisation.