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2017 EVERGREEN 47<br />
. . . and undertaken<br />
40 feet up at the top<br />
of a tree.<br />
lose the tree — so it often amounts to<br />
a fine balancing act.”<br />
Tor says one of the main reasons<br />
why ancient and veteran trees are<br />
so important is because of the<br />
abundance of invertebrate life that<br />
dead wood supports, much of which<br />
may be very rare and vital for the<br />
continuity of habitat. As a result, part<br />
of the overall project has involved<br />
conducting a dead-wood invertebrate<br />
study by Dr. Keith Alexander, the<br />
country’s leading expert in deadwood<br />
invertebrates.<br />
“We knew we were likely to have<br />
a lot of very rare and nationally<br />
scarce invertebrates on our sites so<br />
we wanted to find out which species<br />
of insects etc. are associated with<br />
ancient and veteran trees.”<br />
Dr. Alexander set up traps in the<br />
trees and returned every month to<br />
monitor the results before producing<br />
a report from his sample study. His<br />
findings included a false darkling<br />
beetle last recorded in Leigh Woods<br />
in 1865 and a soldier beetle never<br />
recorded before in Leigh Woods.<br />
“While the main threat to pollards<br />
is structural failure, another is<br />
human activity around the trees.<br />
Are we parking on their roots for<br />
example? Root compaction causes<br />
trees to die.<br />
“If we put a car park where there<br />
are old trees we’re very likely to lose<br />
them. Any activity that’s happening<br />
around a tree that is bad for its<br />
health should be avoided. We’ve got<br />
many very old pollards and we’re<br />
planting and creating new young<br />
ones that will develop gradually.<br />
In the meantime we need to make<br />
some middle-aged trees age more