Ecological impacts of ash dieback in Great Britain

Hill, L

Abstract:: Ash dieback is a severe disease of ash trees (Fraxinus spp.), caused by the invasive fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. In its native East Asia, H. fraxineus is a harmless endophyte, but since its accidental import into Europe in the early 1990s it has infected over 90% of ash trees in some areas, with long-term mortality sometimes exceeding 90%. The disease was discovered in Great Britain in 2012, and has since spread rapidly. This thesis investigates some of the possible i...
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APA Style

Hill, L. (2017). Ecological impacts of ash dieback in Great Britain [PhD thesis]. University of Oxford.

MLA Style

Hill, L. Ecological Impacts of Ash Dieback in Great Britain. University of Oxford, 2017.

Chicago Style

Hill, L. 2017. “Ecological Impacts of Ash Dieback in Great Britain.” PhD thesis, University of Oxford.
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Files:: Hill_2017_Ecological_impacts_of.pdf

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Authors

+ Hill, L More by this author

Division:: MPLS
Department:: Plant Sciences
Department:: Plant Sciences
Role:: Author

Contributors

+ Brown, N

Institution:: University of Oxford
Oxford college:: Linacre College
Role:: Supervisor

+ Hector, A

Department:: Plant Sciences
Role:: Supervisor

+ Hemery, G

Department:: Sylva Foundation
Role:: Supervisor

Type of award:: DPhil
Level of award:: Doctoral
Awarding institution:: University of Oxford

Language:: English
Keywords:: Functional ecology

Abundance distributions

Traits

Ecosystem services

Environmental economics

Forest ecology

Species loss

Ecosystem mapping

Ash dieback

Policy
Subjects:: Ecology
UUID:: uuid:941ee684-798b-47b6-ae51-64baeb5f821e
Deposit date:: 2018-03-07

Related item:: Predicted abundance maps for British Trees
Description:: Downloadable maps of results from Chapter 3: Abundance distributions for tree species in Great Britain: A two-stage approach to modelling abundance using Species Distribution Modelling and Random Forest.
Related item:: Merged abundance dataset from myForest and the Countryside Survey
Description:: Data used in Chapter 3: Abundance distributions for tree species in Great Britain: A two-stage approach to modelling abundance using Species Distribution Modelling and Random Forest.
Related item:: Abundance distributions for tree species in Great Britain: A two-stage approach to modelling abundance using Species Distribution Modelling and Random Forest.
Description:: 1. High-quality abundance data is expensive and time consuming to collect and often highly limited in availability. Nonetheless, accurate, high-resolution abundance distributions are essential for many ecological applications ranging from species conservation to epidemiology. Producing models that can predict abundance well, with good resolution over large areas, has therefore been an important aim in ecology, but poses considerable challenges.2. We present a two-stage approach to modelling abundance, combining two established techniques. First, we produce ensemble species distribution models (SDMs) of trees in Great Britain at a fine resolution, using much more common presence-absence data and key environmental variables. We then use Random Forest regression to predict abundance by linking the results of the SDMs to a much smaller amount of abundance data.3. We show that this method performs well in predicting the abundance of 20 out of 25 tested British tree species, a group that is generally considered challenging for modelling distributions due to the strong influence of human activities.4. Maps of predicted tree abundance for the whole of Great Britain are provided at 1 km2 resolution. Abundance maps have a far wider variety of applications than presence-only maps, and these maps should allow improvements to aspects of woodland management and conservation including analysis of habitats and ecosystem functioning, epidemiology and disease management, providing a useful contribution to the protection of British trees. We also provide complete R scripts to facilitate application of the approach to other scenarios.

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Copyright holder:: Hill, L

Licence:: Terms and Conditions of Use for Oxford University Research Archive

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Ecological impacts of ash dieback in Great Britain

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Ecological impacts of ash dieback in Great Britain

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