Sites Selection and Early Sampling

Wessex BESS

We are currently setting up a large scale experiment (close to Winterborne Stoke, Wilts) involving the addition or removal of plant species to explore effects on greenhouse gas fluxes mediated through above and below ground interactions. Site selection, experimental design and preliminary soil analyses have been completed.

Twenty streams and rivers have been surveyed in catchments spanning a gradient in agricultural land use intensity. These will provide background data for a more intensive food web analysis in three locations.

Sites are being selected for a 2013 summer survey of pollinating and pest control species, to investigate effects of total semi-natural grassland area and biodiversity on the richness and abundance of functional groups.

A series of exploratory workshops in three towns have been carried out to understand the cultural services that people derive from the Wessex landscape and how these may be supported by biodiversity.

Provisional integrated spatial models of ecosystem services have been produced or are under construction and validation data sets have been collated. These provisional models will be tested against updated models incorporating biodiversity-ES relationships derived from the empirical research above.