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Current Research
Ecology
of Green Lanes, England
Birds
Together with Shelley Hinsley
and Tim Sparks from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
at Monks Wood, John supervised PhD student Mike Walker's
comparative study of the value of hedgerows and green
lanes for birds. The research was based in farmland
in the Chester area. Work in 2002/2003 examined the
abundance and species richness of birds in spring/summer
and winter in 20 pairs of green lanes and hedgerows.
Data from a wider geographical area has also been
obtained from a sample of the BTO's Common Bird Census
data. Mike was awarded his PhD in 2007.
See:
Walker et
al. (2005), Walker
et al. (2006)
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Butterflies
John's previous work on green lanes with Tim Sparks and others has been a
comparative study of different linear habitats found
on farmed land (grass banks, hedgerows, green lanes
and woodland rides) for butterfly abundance and species
richness. Green lanes, whether composed of double hedges
in the lowlands or double stone walls in the uplands,
are far better habitat for butterflies than grass banks
or single hedges/stone walls (see Dover
et al. (2000) |
| Great Green Bush Cricket
Field research in 2002-4 by John
Dover and colleagues has been an Earthwatch Institute
funded study on the great green bush cricket (Tettigonia
viridissima) and the gatekeeper butterfly (Pyronia
tithonus) in the field margins, green lanes and
minor roads around the small coastal village of East
Prawle in South Devon. Work involved the characterisation
of the study site (plant species data, abiotic parameters,
digital mapping using DGPS), distribution mapping
of bush crickets, mark-recapture of gatekeepers, and
butterfly transects for other butterfly species at
the site.
In 2003 the project also included studies on craneflies
and leaf-miners.
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Picture
credit : Robert Thorne, Devon Wildlife Trust
For general information on Earthwatch
Programmes click here |
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Land-Use
Change and Butterfly and Orchid Distribution in the Hay Meadows
of the Picos de Europa, Spain (to top of page)
For the project website click here
Click
here for a link to a Spanish
article about the project. |
From
2003 to 2005 this Earthwatch Institute-funded project
ran in the Picos de Europa in northern Spain. Here,
with colleagues from Staffordshire University (England:
Paul Lunt, Jon Fairburn), Alterra (Netherlands: Bob
Bunce), Basel University (Switzerland: Andreas Lang)
and the Complutense University, Madrid (Spain: Alejandro
Rescia and Sara Fungairino), John Dover was looking
at land-use change and butterfly and orchid distributions
in the hay meadows. Fieldwork included botanical surveying,
mapping the study area using Differential Global Positioning
System (DGPS), and mark-release-recapture of butterflies.
The researchers from the Complutense University of
Madrid undertook a socio-economic study of farmers
in the area.
See
the publications
page for research papers produced.
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Myrmecophilous
Lycaenid Butterflies in Australia (to top of page)
Western Jewel in Remnant Vegetation
John Dover spent September-November
1999 in Western Australia on a Leverhulme
Fellowship looking at the colony structure,
host-plant utilisation and dispersal of the
myrmecophilous Lycaenid butterfly Hypochrysops
halyaetus (the western jewel) within
a fragment of native Banksia woodland encapsulated
by urban development. Research partners included
CSIRO Wildlife & Ecology (Perth) and the
WA Department of Conservation and Land Management
(CALM).
See Dover
and Rowlingson (2005), Dover,
Dennis and Atkins (2009)
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Butterfly
Ecology in Scandinavia (to top of page)
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Wildlife Corridors
John Dover has worked in Scandinavia
in collaboration with Gary Fry of the Norwegian Institute
for Nature Research (NINA) in Oslo. The 1995 work investigated
aspects of hedgerows using non-living material such
as windbreaks and coloured tapes to link-up habitat
patches. The behavioural responses to the structures
and controls of butterflies were then recorded. The
experiments showed that even simple two-dimensional
structures could initiate dispersal in an orientated
fashion over non-habitat. Subsequently (1996) Dover
and Fry worked together on a pan-European project; John's
contribution was to help in the field supervision of
a multi-national team of fieldworkers investigating
the metapopulation structure of three species of butterfly
in an agricultural landscape near Ås in Norway.
Work in 1999 in the cultural landscape of Bråbygen
in Småland, Sweden, involved teaching field techniques
to a research group from the Agricultural University
at Alnarp, followed by more fieldwork on butterfly dispersal
near Oslo in Norway. See Dover
and Fry (2001) and Schneider
et al. (2003). |
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