Dodd, Oliver
(2025)
Baselining small mammal communities at a rewilding project.
MRes thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
As one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and one of the European countries with the lowest proportional forest cover, the UK is especially negatively impacted by the consequences of the global biodiversity crisis. Increasingly, rewilding is seen as a method of addressing this issue. The creation of rewilding sites across the UK will inevitably alter the flora and fauna at any given site. Such ecological changes will need to be monitored over time and compared to a baseline to evaluate the success of rewilding projects. This study aims to monitor the changes in small mammal populations across Boothby Wildland, a 617-hectare arable farm on grade 3 land in Lincolnshire that recently began taking steps towards rewilding. The site has been gradually reducing agricultural production since 2022; thus, the site contains fields which are still being actively farmed, and areas which are being subjected to passive rewilding. Small mammals are an ecologically important taxon, that are often overlooked in conservation projects. By studying their responses to spatial and temporal changes in habitat, insight can be gained into how small mammals respond during the early stages of rewilding projects. The main method of monitoring occurred via 6 x 5 grids of Longworth traps across nine months and 70 trapping nights amongst fields withdrawn from agriculture for varying periods. Hedgerows were also monitored. The traps were checked twice a day, and measurements, including species, weight, and sex were taken, before mark and release via fur clippings. Audio equipment was also placed in these trapping grids. This was to test the effectiveness of different survey methods at measuring biodiversity, and as a means of providing a supplementary form of monitoring. The greatest small mammal diversity was found in the hedgerows, confirming their importance as a habitat feature. The majority of catches were dominated by wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus), which made up 509 of the 524 total catches (97.14%), with the remaining 15 catches consisting of 8 field voles , 5 common shrews, 1 pygmy shrew, and 1 harvest mouse. Small mammal populations appeared to reflect typical annual cycles, i.e. greater abundance in the autumn and considerably fewer individuals in the spring. Audio data corroborated the Longworth trapping with regards to November being the greatest month for activity across all species. The fewest small mammals were found, in both Longworth traps and Audio recordings in bare fields, demonstrating a shift in small mammal communities as agricultural fields are taken out of production and vegetation is altered in rewilding projects. These data can be used to inform new rewilding projects of the way small mammals may respond to initial management.
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