I.B.P. studies on montane grassland and moorlands

• Published in: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. B, Biological Sciences
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 1976
• Subjects: Greenland; Tundra
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1976.0047; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.1976.0047

The aim of the grassland and moorland studies was to measure primary and secondary production and to describe the main pathways of dry matter and nutrients within these ecosystems. The strategy was to make detailed studies on two main sites (Snowdonia and Moor House N.N.R. in the northern Pennines) with a limited number of supporting studies. The examination of the few sites in the U.K. must be seen as part of a series of sites within the International Grassland and Tundra Biomes. They are thus replicates and the series allows examination of trends in productivity related to environmental conditions. The Bi-Polar Botanical Project, with sites in Greenland and South Georgia, supported by the U.K., is part of the international series. The Snowdonia project covered a range of sites but concentrated on a sheep-grazed Agrostis-Festuca sward at 460 m. At Moor House attention focused on blanket bog sites dominated by Calluna, Eriophorum and Sphagnum at about 600 m with supporting studies on dwarf shrub communities ranging from 1100 m in the Cairngorm Mountains to 60 m in Dorset. Comparisons are made of three estimates of primary productivity, of herbivore consumption with production, and decomposer populations with process rates. These results are briefly reviewed in the context of the international range of sites; they allow us to distinguish broad patterns of ecosystem functioning.