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.