Hedges & edges: Spatially targeting woodland creation in fragmented landscapes

We are in a time of global restoration efforts to defragment and restore degraded woodland landscapes. However, this needs to be balanced with other important habitat types and economically productive land, which leaves limited space for woodland creation. This thesis unpicks how the spatial targeting of woodland creation can enhance the benefits obtained from new woodlands It does this using a range of methods to assess multiple restoration success metrics. Chapter Two uses LiDAR data to assess how targeting woodland creation to enhance connectivity can increase the speed at which woodlands develop. Here, it finds that creating woodlands adjacent to mature stands increases their growth, and also leads to greater structural complexity. Chapter Three attempts to quantify the long ecological time-lags between creating woodlands and species colonisation. It shows that colonisation credit can take decades to fulfil, and that spatially targeting woodland creation can help to ameliorate this. Chapter Four assesses how different spatial targeting strategies can influence population dynamics of individual species at the landscape-scale, it then observes how the presence of ecological corridors modify the efficacy of these different strategies. This chapter shows that in the fragmented landscapes of the UK, extending existing woodland patches is generally the best strategy to increase population sizes and connect woodland fragments. However, the presence of hedgerows improves the performance of isolated stepping-stone habitats, and thus these must be utilised where woodland is created in an isolated setting. These results show that creating woodlands adjacent to mature existing woodlands should be a priority. This will speed up the development of new woodlands, reduce local ecological time-lags, and improve population persistence across landscapes.