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Fen Management Handbook - Scottish Natural Heritage

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Case Study 5.3<br />

<strong>Fen</strong> <strong>Management</strong> and Restoration<br />

– Wybunbury Moss<br />

Wybunbury Moss is a small basin fen, 18ha in extent, approximately 9km south-east<br />

of Nantwich in Cheshire (SJ697502). The fen has formed in one of the many glacial<br />

hollows found in this part of the country. At its centre is an oligotrophic, floating<br />

mire or schwingmoor, which has been formed through the solution and subsidence<br />

of underlying salt-bearing strata. The peat raft is surrounded by open fen, mixed<br />

woodland and wet grassland.<br />

The site is notified as a SSSI for its raised mire, bog pool and fen communities,<br />

vascular plant assemblages and its invertebrate assemblage, the latter being<br />

arguably the most important in Cheshire. The Moss also forms part of the Midlands<br />

Meres and Mosses Ramsar site and the West Midlands Mosses SAC (transition<br />

mires and quaking bogs).<br />

Flora and fauna<br />

The central oligotrophic area contains much Sphagnum fallax, S. capillifolium<br />

and S. papillosum, upon which grow round-leaved sundew Drosera rotundifolia,<br />

bog rosemary Andromeda polifolia and white beak-sedge Rhynchospora alba.<br />

Radiating out from this, Sphagnum recurvum becomes the dominant and often, only<br />

Sphagnum species, generally occurring with common cotton-grass Eriophorum<br />

angustifolium, hare’s-tail cotton-grass E. vaginatum, cross-leaved heath Erica<br />

tetralix, cranberry Vaccinium oxycoccos, crowberry Empetrum nigrum and heather<br />

Calluna vulgaris.<br />

<strong>Fen</strong> woodland is characteristic of those parts of the mire where the peat is wet and<br />

unstable and the mire waters are eutrophic. The principal canopy species is alder<br />

with lesser amounts of rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), downy birch (Betula pubescens),<br />

oak (Quercus robur and Q. petraea), common sallow (Salix cinerea) with alder<br />

buckthorn (Frangula alnus) and guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) in the shrub layer.<br />

This community has the most diverse ground flora on the reserve with species<br />

including greater and lesser bulrush, common reed and saw sedge.<br />

A rich invertebrate fauna includes two Red Data Book (RDB) species of spider, the<br />

increasingly rare argent and sable moth (Rheumaptera hastata) and the RDB2 leaf<br />

beetle (Cryptocephalus decemmaculatus).<br />

Past management<br />

Although Wybunbury has been an NNR since 1954, significant habitat<br />

management did not take place until the mid 1980s. Since then, management<br />

has concentrated on reversing the adverse effects of tree encroachment and<br />

eutrophication, whilst at the same time maintaining suitable habitats for the<br />

invertebrate assemblage.<br />

The plant communities for which the site is notified are those which occupy the<br />

wetter, treeless parts of the Moss. However, attempts to drain parts of the Moss<br />

for peat cutting and the gradual encroachment of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) have<br />

led to a reduction in the extent of these communities. <strong>Management</strong> work since the<br />

1980s has centred on restoring water levels and removing trees and scrub from<br />

these areas – the generic guidance for conservation objectives gives a guideline of<br />

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