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Webinar featuring Raj Whitlock “30 Years of Research at the Buxton Climate Change Research Laboratory”
Long-term Climate Manipulation
Established in 1993, the BCCIL is located on privately-owned calcareous grassland on the outskirts of Buxton in Derbyshire. Using a combination of heating cables, automated rain guards and a watering system, this experiment tests our understanding of how future climate change will impact upon ecosystems of the British Isles. There are five replicate plots, each containing nine 3m x 3m sub-plots for the various treatments and controls.
Climatic variables are manipulated experimentally to evaluate the impact of elevated winter temperatures (ambient temperature +3°C November to May), controlled summer drought (no rain July/August) and supplemented summer rainfall (ambient rain +20% July/August).
Temperature and soil moisture are logged continuously, with all plots subjected to simulated sheep grazing in October.
Each block contains three spare plots allowing new experiments to be introduced. These currently include investigations of the impacts of climate on invasibility and transplant experiments examining the effects of soil depth on the fitness of contrasted plant species.
example of a rainfall cover (drought treatment plots)
panorama of all plots, without rain covers
Seasonal Warming Microcosms
Each year, well-defined responses to the winter warming treatments are observed in the large-scale climate experiment. As warming by heating cables is only suitable when the vegetation is short, BCCIL has embarked on an alternative approach that can be applied to tall grassland.
Initiated in 2008, and now in the sampling phase, the microcosm experiment is specifically designed to detect impacts that are specific to the season in which warming is applied.
Matched grassland communities were established using transplants of the site's ten most abundant species together with two southern grasses (Brachypodium pinnatum and Bromopsis erectus).
Each of the 25 microcosms were allocated one of five treatments (four seasons plus a control) and subjected to warming of 3°C above ambient temperatures.
Vegetation height was measured on a weekly basis.
BCCIL is managed by a Steering Committee, chaired by Raj Whitlock (University of Liverpool), alongside Karl Evans (University of Sheffield) and Emma Sayer (Lancaster University). If you are interested in accessing the site for research purposes, please contact the Steering Committee via e-mail. Further information can be found on the BCCIL website.
The Virtual Reality Experience of Buxton
ECT has created a 2D virtual reality preview of the Buxton experiment in collaboration with Stickee UK. Watch this VR tour (YouTube).
