Slow development of woodland vegetation and bird communities during 33 years of passive rewilding in open farmland.

ABSTRACT: Passive rewilding is a potential tool for expanding woodland cover and restoring biodiversity by abandoning land management and allowing natural vegetation succession to occur. Land can be abandoned to passive rewilding deliberately or due to socio-economic change. Despite abandonment being a major driver of land use change, few have studied the long-term outcomes for vegetation and biodiversity in Western Europe. Studies are also biased towards sites that are close to seed sources and favourable to woodland colonisation. In this case-study, we reconstruct a time series of passive rewilding over 33 years on 25 ha of former farmland that had been subject to soil tipping, far from woodland seed sources. Natural colonisation by shrubs and trees was surveyed at three points during the time ser

SUBMITTER: Broughton RK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9651571 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature