Stag Beetle Conference – Richmond Park 30/10/04

Welcome

In welcoming delegates, Simon Richards (Park Superintendent), thanked all project volunteers and staff for their dedicated work. He said this was the first large-scale project of this kind, and was producing urgently needed information. John Hatto (Project Coordinator) thanked Simon for the support he and his staff had provided throughout the year and a half. The project had been running. He summarised the Conference aims as:

How best to express this year’s results?
What to do differently next year?
What different things should we do next year?
Find an innovative project on which to spend the Sun Project Funding

He explained that no one speaker would provide all the answers but the Morning Speakers would look at the Habitat Aspects and those in the Afternoon were addressing methods. John also introduced the first Speaker who with his wife Jean had provided so much of the data and inspiration for the work

2 - Review of 2003 and 2004 Data – Mark Wagstaff

This presentation is a summary of Stag Beetle sightings made in Richmond Park during the 2003 and 2004 seasons. Some sightings are of live beetles but most of the data comes from finding remains.

2003 Results

The remains were found from June 2003 and into 2004
Most remains were found by dead trees or stumps. Often found in sunny locations with short grass. Emergence holes in seen in ground nearby.
Few remains were found in bracken but the remains mainly complete – so bracken may provide cover from predators.
In 2003 the weather was hot and dry and the grass height was low, this may have made beetles and remains easy to see.

2004 Results

Charts showing weekly sightings of remains and live beetles.

This year’s finds started around 8^th May (evidence that these were recent finds were- fragile wings found, ants crawling over remains and partial beetles found still alive).
Peak live sightings occurred between end of May and beginning of June. Remains peak occurred around 5 June. Live males were sighted earlier than females.

Aerial Maps of park showing distribution of remains and live male and female beetles. Indicate that beetles prefer the edges of woods and open areas to the centres of woods.
Predators –

Corvid evidence – live beetles minus abdomen,
Badgers - circumstantial odd bits turning up in excavated soil.
Fox - teeth marks,
Human activity – crushed beetle on shared path.
Photo of owl pellet showing wing case

Compare 2003 and 2004 sightings

293 beetles in 2004 compared to 95 in 2003. More results were due to surveying more of the park, starting earlier in the year with more people, or was this due to annual fluctuations?
There were 15 sites where remains were found in both 2003 (41) and 2004(63). Looking at each individual site shows vast variations between 2003 and 2004.
Due to length of life cycle will take several years data to indicate population trend.
Is population sustainable as very few unpredated beetles found?

3 - Questions about Habitat - Rebecca Hale

Extended version here.

4 - Dead & Ancient Tree Habitats – Simon Richards

A veteran tree is defined as a tree that is of interest, biologically, culturally or aesthetically because of its age, size or condition. Alternatively, a tree that is in the final cycle of its life, which in some cases means that these trees can predate human intervention. As such they have a long history, which has been preserved by their form. For example many of our older trees were pollarded, to provide fuel, animal feed and or wood for tools. This process preserved the tree and lead to a short squat shape. This practice died out about 200 years ago and has only recently been restarted; too late to stop many of them collapsing.

Tree ecology is linked to wildlife, with almost 2000 insect species and 500 rare fungi associated with old trees. Fungi can be supportive, for example, in helping the tree extract nutriments and even fungi causing decay can lead to long-term protection. For example, those causing heart rot, increase the stability of the tree by reducing its ability to maintain its maximum height and branch spread, thus reducing wind loading, whilst leaving a strong, but hollow trunk.

Management, given the status of the site, the policy has long been in favour of retaining dead and dying wood. Ideally, one should do nothing but intervention is essential to mitigate changing, environmental conditions, historical and current changes of use and damage caused by man and by the environment. The large number of public visitors, who tend to concentrate in various areas, necessitates a variety of different approaches to balancing conservation and public safety. Here at Richmond Park we have a 30 year plan, and survey trees at various frequencies, depending on the level of public activity associated with them. During the lunch break, conference members joined the Superintendent in studying various nearby trees.

5 - Developments in Stag Beetle Research - Deborah Harvey

Deborah Harvey, a PhD Researcher on Stag Beetles with our Monitoring Partner, Royal Holloway University of London Royal Holloway, explained that she was hoping to publish some of her work shortly so a detailed report was not possible but she gave off the record information about current lines of investigation and some projects planned.

6 - Survey and Monitoring: Principles and Practice – Nigel Reeve

Richmond Park NNR has a nationally important saproxylic invertebrate community and is designated a European candidate Special Area for Conservation for its stag beetles.

Prior to the 2004 survey we had few data about their status, but we now have the basis for the development of an effective monitoring programme.

This paper presents a concise guide to some of the issues relating to increasing the validity of survey sampling and the development of a sustainable standard monitoring method. The work this year has highlighted some problems regarding future field sampling methods. Biases should be minimised and there should be sufficient replication of samples to ensure statistical validity, but the sampling programme must also be practically achievable with a small team of volunteer surveyors. Key issues emerging from the 2004 survey include the need to reduce sampling bias with regard to location within the park so that there is better representation of the central area of the Park. This would help to facilitate investigations into whether stag beetles originate within the park or fly in from peripheral areas, and whether the frequency of occurrence of remains of predated beetles has an association with specific local site characteristics.

Thanks to a tremendous volunteer effort, this year’s survey work has successfully paved the way for the development of a repeatable constant-effort sampling method that will allow population monitoring by relative comparison of annual counts. Such a method can, with appropriate and different sampling protocols, be applied to both the study of predated remains and surveys of live beetles in the Park.

7 - Community Engagement in South-West London - Charlotte Williams (LA Community Ecology Officer)

Charlotte provided a background and history of Richmond’s Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) and introduced some of the Key Stakeholders, which included the Royal Parks Agency, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, London Wetlands Centre, London Wildlife Trust and various community groups. Next she talked about the progress on the Local BAP and all the Habitat and Species Action Plans, which are included within the LBAP. She then gave some examples of projects relating to each Habitat and Species Action Plans, with some of those present leading local and in some cases Regional and National Plans. Locally, the current species action plans cover, Water vole, Amphibians, Song thrush, Stag beetle, Mistletoe, Bats and Tower Mustard. The current habitat action plans include Ancient Parkland/Veteran trees, Acid Grassland, Tidal Thames, Urban, Broad-leaved Woodland and Reedbeds. Charlotte encouraged all those present to become more involved in these wider local initiatives.

Charlotte then outlined the EU LIFE funded SUN Project, its full title is “Sustainable Urban Planning Networks for Green Spaces” and the Partners include London Borough’s of Richmond, Redbridge, Sutton, Bromley and CiP (on behalf of LB Hounslow), Global to Local (Environmental Consultancy) and Legambiente (Italian NGO). The aims of the project are: to increase stakeholder participation in planning for urban wildlife strategies and implement BAP’s by means of innovative projects involving the local community.

Finally, Charlotte outlined the ten projects, including Richmond Park’s stag beetle project, which are being offered funding through the EU for implementing innovative projects under the five various categories. Stag Beetles is one of two projects being included under the Individual species projects.

8 - Community Engagement in RBG Kew - Simon Cole

Extended version here

Questions to Speakers & Discussion and Concluding Remarks

It was generally agreed that all speakers had provided plenty of food for thought.

Concern was expressed about the levels of predation which some people considered very high, it was difficult to comment because no comparable figures were available and at this stage we could not say how many beetles had successfully bred, or even how many were available to do so.

Concerns were raised about differentiating between different types of observation, for example live sightings, dead beetles and partial remains.

Those attending were thanked for their time and contributions and the project volunteers were complemented on the amount achieved and the quality of their work.

John Hatto made a final plea for written contributions to help answer the 4 questions with which we opened and then he closed the Meeting with thanks to the Royal Parks for hosting the event.

NB I am aware that I should have made better notes of the questions asked so please let me have any issues you feel I have omitted.

Return to Beetles Home Page