Dartmoor Research

ENDEMIC RESEARCH

These are the tree species on dartmoor that could feature in my final peaces, I researched the different speacies to give my story more depth and to show the diversity of the area I am basic my project on.

DARTMOOR HISTORY

Dartmoor was once covered in Giant Redwoods about 370,000 years ago around the time of the Dinosaurs but then there were years of earthquakes, volcano's, an ice age and Dartmoor was also cover by sea more than two times. After the ice age 12000 years ago Dartmoor was covered in trees. Wistmans wood is now the oldest woods in Devon and has been reduced to a fraction of its original size. After the ice age is when Dartmoor was becoming more inhabited due to the natural resources and good hunting, to do this Humans made clearings in woodland to entice animals to graze, this practice began the spread of peat blanket bog which now covers much of the higher moorland. When wetter climates came humans were forced off of the high moorland for better farming, they left behind a number of prehistoric boundary's and settlements.In the 9th and 10th century the settlers came back due to another climate change,there is also evidence of re-colonization following the Norman conquest. The majority of Dartmoor's inhabitants relied on tin mining, granite and sheep farming, the quarrying played a massive role for century's, luckily there is protected evidence of this still on Dartmoor also 60% of stone rows in England reside there and there are 1200 sites with evidence of living on Dartmoor from past times.

http://www.visitdevon.co.uk/areas-to-visit/dartmoor-national-park-west-devon/

ENDANGERED

"Woodland management can
drastically affect lower plants by changing the micro-climate as well as destroying host trees. Dartmoor is
particularly important for oceanic species which require high humidity. Felling in stream valleys needs to take
this into account and should be preceded by survey work in
potentially rich areas."

www.dartmoor-npa.gov.

This is a section from a Dartmoor Species Action Plan
for Mosses, Lichens, Ferns and Fungi. saying that the management of trees is effecting the population of lower plants such as Bryoria smithii which is now on the red list as  threatened and is critically endangered in the UK.
(pic below)

 Also known as "Beard lichen" the Bryoria smithii grows on Oaks and mossy boulders, it is sad that it is only recorded in Wismans wood and Black-a-tor Corpse in England. This lichen is a beautiful one and gives a wonderful fantasy feel to woods such as Wismans wood.

 This is Wistmans wood one of the last areas of original woodland on Dartmoor and an area of which Is essential to my project because of it being unique.


EVAPOTRANSPIRATION

The Oak tree can take up to 7 tons of water from the earth a day, this is a very serious fault to cutting down trees as the more trees cut down takes away the way in which areas drain water because of this to much water is getting into the soil and washing away the nutrients making it unusable to farm and therefore by cutting down trees we are in fact starving our selves and rendering the land useless. Seven tons of water a day is an incredible amount of water and if we count up on how many tons of water that is a year its around two thousand five hundred and fifty five tons a year of water added to the moor each tree that's been chopped down so imagine if a few hundred trees are chopped down we will be hundreds of thousands of tons of water a year into the soil.