In what organiser Dan Banks has hailed ‘a triumph for citizen science’, teams of volunteers have gathered vital data from sites that typify vital and at-risk types of habitat. From June to August at Sheepleas Nature Reserve above East and West Horsley, more than 80 volunteers surveyed 20 hectares of chalk grassland and also areas of coarser grassland and woodland edges.
At Unstead Wetland Nature Reserve near Godalming, members of the Unstead Nature Community Group joined additional SWT volunteers and staff over an eight-week period to examine shallow stillwater and reedbed habitat that serves as a vital home for hundreds of species from migrant birds to at-risk butterflies.
At both sites, citizen scientists used quadrats and the S4N app to assess, identify and record the key species present. On chalk grassland, these included Fairy Flax, Horseshoe Vetch and Salad Burnett, and on the wetland areas the indicator species were Reed Mace, Marsh Thistle and Soft Rush. The team also looked at a meadow on Unstead that has been restored under the direction of Louis Harrington-Edmans from Buglife to assess the extent to which species such as Yellow Rattle, Black Knapweed and Crested Dog’s-tail are returning to the site.
The data collected from both sites has been fed into the University of Surrey’s emergent machine learning tool to help devise a mapping system through which sites across Surrey will be assessed and categorised using images taken from space. This will enable the Space4Nature team to identify, protect or create substantial corridors of similar types of habitat across the county, helping plants and animals access food, shelter and breeding opportunities more easily.
Reporting back from the lab, Research Fellow Dr Ana Andries says:
“Thanks to the wealth of excellent data provided by volunteers on the ground, we are now close to devising an intelligent system that will be able to differentiate habitats precisely and automatically. The next steps will be to assess what additional information we might need to enable subtle differences between habitat types to be picked up and to gather and process more data from different habitat types, such as neutral, modified and chalk grassland.
“Differentiating the habitats is a complex process that involves significant work, including mosaicking satellite tiles for the county of Surrey and calculating various vegetation indices to support the system. To assist with these tasks, BSc students Hannah Landman and Nat Knight, who are enrolled in the Environmental and Sustainability program at the University of Surrey, had the opportunity to collaborate with us. They contributed by helping to mosaic the satellite images and perform the vegetation index calculations.”
B-lines work undertaken in partnership with S4N project partners Buglife has also yielded great results to date, with some 45 hectares of habitat delivered within these pollinator pathways to create or improve sites including Quarry Hangers near Caterham, Unstead nature reserve, Rosamund Community Garden and Rosamund Meadow. At Rosamund Meadow, for example, two hectares of scrub were mechanically removed to prevent overshading of one of Surrey's best chalk grassland sites. This will support species including Kidney Vetch and the Small Blue butterflies that feed on this rare chalk grassland plant. At Ockham Common, vital removal of invasive Scots Pine was carried out to benefit the rare Tiger Beetles that rely on the open heathland habitat that the site is protected for.
Buglife’s Space4Nature Conservation Officer Louis Harrington-Edmans, who manages the creation of these vital pathways for pollinators in Surrey, says:
“Connecting nature-rich areas is the most important objective we can strive for. Every hectare of habitat that we make into a pitstop for pollinators contributes not only to local biodiversity but to wider crop fertility and a more vibrant landscape on a much larger scale. Buglife is working to deliver a targeted 150,000 hectares of wildlife rich B-lines habitat nationwide, and I’m proud that thanks to Space4Nature, we can now boast an additional 45 hectares in Surrey, with a further 12 hectares set to be created over the coming winter.”