Peatlands are globally-important habitats, archives of palaeoenvironmental information and carbon stores. However, human activities including drainage, burning, peat harvesting and pollution are having devastating impacts on peatlands (1). Enormous sums of money are being invested in the restoration of peatlands internationally to transform degraded sites back into healthy habitats and carbon sinks. It has been found that some peatlands can recover and resume their ecosystem services over centennial-millennial timescales without human intervention (2), although the mechanisms of ‘self-recovery’ in peatlands are very poorly understood.
The aim of this project is to build a long-term collaboration between a multi-disciplinary group of early career and experienced scientists, to investigate how ecological refugia are maintained in heavily damaged peatlands, and to what extent they determine long-term resilience of peatland ecosystems.
Lead Academic at Lead University
Graeme T. Swindles, School of Geography, University of Leeds
Lead Academics at other Universities
Richard PayneDepartment of Environment and Geography, University of York
Gunnar MallonDepartment of Geography, University of Sheffield
Other Staff Associated with this Project
Andy BairdSchool of Geography, University of Leeds
Cat MoodySchool of Geography, University of Leeds
Sylvia ToetDepartment of Environment and Geography ,University of York
Kelly RedekerDepartment of Biology, University of York
Bob JohnstonDepartment of Archaeology, University of Sheffield
Ed RhodesDepartment of Geography, University of Sheffield
Other Partners
Friends of Ilkley Moor : Tracy Gray
Bradford Metropolitan District Council : Richard Perham
Professor Mariusz Galka, Department of Biogeography and Palaeoecology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland.
