Rare high-altitude money spider discovered near Loch Ness

Rare money spider Hilaira nubigena © Jens-Kjeld Jensen

Surveys at Trees for Life’s Dundreggan Conservation Estate in Glenmoriston near Loch Ness have revealed a rare money spider in a find described by experts as “spectacular”.

The discovery of an adult male of the species Hilaira nubigena at the native forest restoration site in Inverness-shire is the first record of the spider west of the Great Glen for more than 25 years.

The rare arachnid has been recorded from damp moorland above 400m and up to 700m, but little is known about its habits. It may be characteristic of high-altitude habitats such as ‘montane woodland’ – a

Rewilding creates jobs and training at Loch Ness conservation estate

Pictured left-right: Alan Watson Featherstone,
Emma Beckinsale and Doug Gilbert from Trees for Life
at the charity’s Native Tree Nursery, Dundreggan

An acclaimed forest restoration project near Loch Ness is demonstrating how conservation can create employment opportunities in the Highlands, says award-winning charity Trees for Life.

 

This week Trees for Life introduced two new seasonal staff roles at its Dundreggan Conservation Estate in Glenmoriston, bringing the number of employees at the biodiversity hotspot to six – a substantial increase on the single employee under the site’s previous ownership, when it was managed as a traditional sporting estate.

 

With concerns about employment in much of the country, and across the Highlands in particular, Trees for Life says that the steady growth in

Trees for Life Newsletter - Summer Edition 2013

Summer Newsletter from Trees for Life I'm delighted to send you our summer edition of Caledonia Wild! and to let you know about our beautiful new plant-a-tree gift certificates and greetings cards. I would also like to ask for your support with our latest appeal - the expansion of our tree nursery. Dundreggan Tree Nursery Appeal We have an exciting opportunity to increase the scale and range of the production at our

Sponsor an Acre at Dundreggan to restore wild forest in the Scottish Highlands.

Dundreggan is a very special place, with wildflower meadows and aspen woods along the River Moriston, rising through ancient Caledonian pinewoods to the mires, lochans and heathlands on the higher mountain slopes. With your donation of £5 per month, you can

Scientists crack genetic code of dwarf birch from Highlands forest restoration site

Richard Buggs & Dwarf Birch
(Betula nana) inside exclosure

Scientists today announced the sequencing of the entire genetic code – the genome – of a dwarf birch from Trees for Life’s Dundreggan Estate near Loch Ness in Glen Moriston, where the conservation charity is working to conserve a natural population of the species.

Dwarf birch (Betula nana) is a nationally scarce species in Britain, occurring mainly in small populations on Scottish mountains. The genome’s sequencing – a laboratory process that identifies the complete DNA sequence of an organism – lays the foundations for genetic research into the birch genus, which includes up to 60 tree species. This will benefit studies on the conservation of dwarf birch.

“Increasing our understanding of tree genomes is essential for our long-term ability to conserve and grow tree species in the UK,” said Richard Buggs, lead scientist of the project, who is based at Queen Mary University of London.

Alan Watson Featherstone, executive director of Trees for Life, said: “This is a tremendous breakthrough. Together with our woodland

New discoveries in charity’s ‘Lost world’ Highland estate

Larva of sawfly
(Amauronematus sp.)
feeding on dwarf birch
(Betula nana)
 on Dundreggan. 

Biodiversity surveys carried out on Trees for Life’s Dundreggan Estate, in Glen Moriston, Inverness-shire in 2011 – the first year of the United Nations Decade of Biodiversity (2011-2020) and also the International Year of Forests – have revealed a range of rare and endangered species.

The new discoveries on the 10,000-acre estate include the first Scottish record of one species of sawfly and what may be the first British record of another; the second-ever British record of a waxfly species; and species of spider, cranefly and dragonfly all listed in the UK’s Red Data Book of endangered species.

At least 60 priority species for conservation have now been identified on the site........Read more

Common Juniper (Juniperus communis) at Dundreggan Estate

Dundreggan is a 4000 hectare estate in Glen Moriston which is owned by Trees for Life, a charity organisation dedicated to restoring part of the Caledonian Forest in Scotland's northern highlands.

Yesterday, Sunday 22nd May was Biodiversity Day and Trees for Life held a public event to open new visitor facilities at Dundreggan. I took the opportunity to meet a few people and discuss surveying for Red Squirrels in the area which currently has few sightings and nothing confirmed on the estate itself.

Steve Morris, the estates manager showed me some gnawed spruce cones that had been found. These were mostly mice but one cone was definitely squirrel gnawed, so the challenge is now to establish their presence and distribution.

Following the official opening of a new visitor footpath we were taken to see the Wild Boar enclosure which is, in part an experiment in Bracken control and forest regeneration. I found it a moving experience to see these charismatic animals in a near natural environment, albeit behind a fence because, to me, they are the precursors of large wild animals once again living in the forests of northern Scotland.

Exciting as all this is, something that really drew my attention was the Juniper ( Juniperus communis ) growing over a large area adjacent to the visitor car park. This species has badly suffered from changes in land management, over grazing and browsing in recent times; and to see it here in all its representative forms was a real pleasure.