In November 2023, Catalina Estrada (Imperial College London) received a maintenance grant to support the replacement of the decades old and run-down wire fences that aim to keep rabbits and other small mammals out of the experiment’s large herbivores exclusion plots.
Nash's Field is one of the field experiments of Imperial College London, Silwood Park campus that over 30 years has helped to assess the impact of herbivory, fertilisation and manipulation of soil pH on acidic grasslands. Research on the experiment has clearly shown the importance of long-term and multifactor studies to explore ecological interactions, and to understand the dynamics and resilience of grassland ecosystems.
The latest analysis of the first two decades of herbivores and soil manipulations revealed fast responses to treatments in plant richness and abundance of dominant species. This was in addition to the long-lasting effects from short-term manipulations and extreme weather events. For example, nutrient application, followed by rabbit exclusion and an increase in pH had higher single effects on plant diversity and productivity in the first decade. However, in the second decade, these single effects were absent, and interaction between these and other factors became more important. The experiment has also revealed larger plant community-level effects that took more than a decade to appear, in addition to a considerable year to year variation in the significance and size of treatment effects (Leverkus & Crawley 2020). Belowground, treatments have also altered the soil microbe diversity, cycling, and storage of soil nutrients. For example, modification of soil acidity has major direct and indirect impacts on bacterial communities, including the mediation of effect of pesticides and fertilisers (Mombrikotb et al 2022).
A: BEFORE
B: After
An example of plots before and after fences were fully replaced in November 2023. Nash’s field has eight 22 x 22 m plots where they expect to keep many generations of rabbits away. Photo credits: Catalina Estrada.
The Silwood Park LTE team is very grateful to the ECT for the upgrade of the Nash’s Field fences. The team anticipate that this step safeguards the integrity and longevity of the experiment. They hope it will help attract more researchers to discover the potential that it offers to study many of the environmental challenges faced today.
