Vegetation and climate : a thirty-six year study in road verges at Bibury, Gloucestershire.
The long-term study, initiated by Professor Arthur Willis in 1958, of the vegetation of permanent plots in road verges at Akeman Street, near Bibury, Gloucestershire, is a unique and valuable record of annual variations in shoot biomass of individual species, and of the vegetation as a whole, over a...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
University of Sheffield
1996
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/21770/ https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/21770/1/387653.pdf |
| Summary: | The long-term study, initiated by Professor Arthur Willis in 1958, of the vegetation of permanent plots in road verges at Akeman Street, near Bibury, Gloucestershire, is a unique and valuable record of annual variations in shoot biomass of individual species, and of the vegetation as a whole, over a 38-year period. The study was originally devised to monitor the effects of herbicides and a growth regulator on roadside vegetation. However, more recently, in the context of the possible effects of climate change on indigenous vegetation, interest has centred on data from the untreated control plots and their potential in detecting long-term plant/weather relationships. In Part 1 of this thesis, annual fluctuations in the de-trended or flat-trended aboveground biomass of over 40 plant species at Bibury are compared with three orders of climatic variables: individual weather variables such as temperature, rainfall and sunshine; the frequency of 'Lamb weather types' (anticyclonic, cyclonic and westerly weather), which in large part determines rainfall, sunshine and temperature; and with the changing position of the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, which may, in part, determine the frequency of weather types over the UK. In all comparisons, markedly non-random climate/plant relationships were detected. The responses of Bibury taxa to individual weather variables matched closely their responses to weather types. The analyses presented here agree with other studies which link a northerly Gulf Stream with increased frequencies of anticyclonic weather in spring and autumn and reduced frequencies in summer. It is suggested that plant species promoted by a more northerly Gulf Stream tend to be robust perennials with early phenologies or deep-rooted species which may exhibit a degree of drought avoidance, but which may also respond rapidly to favourable conditions in spring and summer. Overall, settled, hot, dry summers appear at Bibury to decrease the total productivity of the vegetation and promote the amount of bare ... |
|---|