Activity
Environmental Change Network: Rabbits and deer

Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and deer (red (Cervus elaphus) and roe (Capreolus capreolus)) are the most common wild herbivores in the United Kingdom where they have a considerable effect on vegetation structure and on plant diversity over very large areas of both grassland and woodland. There are several examples of ecosystems in which these animals are the principal determinants of plant composition and structure, and therefore of habitat for other organisms. Whilst it is important to know whether numbers of either or both of these herbivores have changed appreciably, there are no practicable methods of making direct measures of their population size, and an index method based on dropping counts is therefore used to estimate relative abundance. The recording method is expected to detect changes similar to those which have occurred in the past, such as the dramatic fall and slow recovery of rabbit numbers following the introduction of myxomatosis.

General Information

Objectives: To monitor broad changes in the populations of rabbits and deer
Keywords: dropping counts
Activity
Environmental Change
Biodiversity
habitat use
deer
rabbit
ECN
Oryctolagus cuniculus
Cervus elaphus
Red deer
Roe deer
Capreolus capreolus
Parameters measured: number of rabbit droppings
number of deer droppings
erff keywords: E1.3, B1, A4, C14, C16, A4, B2, C1, D5.2, E3.2.4, E1.2.2, E5.A.1, E5.B.4.2, D5.2.2, E5.C.2, G2.2.1, T1, T5, T1.1, T1.2, S3.8, S3.10, D5.2.2
Links to data: UK Environmental Change Network (ECN) rabbit and deer data: 1993-2012

Location

Bounding box

This activity uses these facilities/networks:

Wytham
Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon
Porton
Hillsborough
Sourhope
Alice Holt
North Wyke
Moor House - Upper Teesdale
Rothamsted (Harpenden)
Glensaugh research station
Drayton
Cairngorms

This activity is set up for these programmes:

Environmental Change Network

Costs/Funding

Future Funding Status: Unsure

Contacts

Lead organisation: Sue Rennie Centre for Ecology & Hydrology LANCASTER LA1 4AP UK ecnccu@ceh.ac.uk
Funder: Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute BELFAST BT9 5PX UK info@afbini.gov.uk http://www.afbini.gov.uk
Funder: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Polaris House North Star Avenue Swindon WILTSHIRE SN2 1UH UK +44 (0)1793 413200 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/
Funder: Natural Resources Wales Ty Cambria 29 Newport Road CARDIFF CF24 0TP UK enquiries@naturalresourceswales.gov.uk +44 (0) 300 065 3000 http://naturalresourceswales.gov.uk/
Funder: Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Porton Down Salisbury WILTSHIRE SP4 0JQ UK +44 (0) 1980 613000 https://www.dstl.gov.uk/
Funder: Defra 17 Smith Square LONDON SW1P 3JR UK defra.helpline@defra.gsi.gov.uk +44 20 7238 6951 https://www.gov.uk/defra
Funder: Environment Agency National Customer Contact Centre PO Box 544 ROTHERHAM S60 1BY UK enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk 03708 506 506 https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/environment-agency
Funder: Forestry Commission 620 Bristol Business Park Coldharbour Lane BRISTOL BS16 1EJ UK fe.england@forestry.gsi.gov.uk +44 (0) 117 906 6000 http://www.forestry.gov.uk/
Funder: Welsh Government Cathays Park CARDIFF CF10 3NQ UK 0300 0603300 http://wales.gov.uk/
Funder: Natural England Foundry House 3 Millsands Riverside Exchange SHEFFIELD S3 8NH UK enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk 0300 060 3900 http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/
Funder: Natural Environment Research Council Polaris House North Star Avenue SWINDON SN2 1EU UK +44 (0) 1793 411500 http://www.nerc.ac.uk
Funder: Northern Ireland Environment Agency nieainfo@doeni.gov.uk 0845 302 0008 http://www.doeni.gov.uk/niea/
Funder: Scottish Environment Protection Agency Erskine Court Castle Business Park STIRLING FK9 4TR UK +44 (0) 1786 457700 http://www.sepa.org.uk/
Funder: Scottish Government St. Andrew's House Regent Road EDINBURGH EH1 3DG UK ceu@scotland.gsi.gov.uk 0300 244 4000 http://www.scotland.gov.uk
Funder: Scottish Natural Heritage Leachkin Road INVERNESS IV3 8NW UK enquiries@snh.gov.uk +44 (0) 1463 725000 http://www.snh.gov.uk
Other: ADAS Pendeford House Pendeford Business Park Wobaston Rd Pendeford WOLVERHAMPTON WV9 5AP UK enquiries@adas.co.uk 0845 766 0085 http://www.adas.co.uk/
Other: Forest Research Alice Holt Lodge Farnham SURREY GU10 4LH UK research.info@forestry.gsi.gov.uk 01420 22255 http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestresearch
Other: Marine Scotland Science 375 Victoria Road PO Box 101 ABERDEEN AB11 9DB UK +44 (0)1224 876544 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/marine/science
Other: Rothamsted Research Harpenden HERTFORDSHIRE AL5 2JQ UK + 44 (0) 1582 763 133 http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk
Other: The James Hutton Institute Craigiebuckler Craigiebuckler ABERDEEN AB15 8QH UK info@hutton.ac.uk +44 (0) 844 928 5428 http://www.hutton.ac.uk/
Other: UK Upland Waters Monitoring Network http://awmn.defra.gov.uk/

Metadata

Publication status: PUBLIC
Record identifier: 31aca443-7d1d-4d18-903a-c163f395d004
Last modified: 2017-08-21 11:18:10
Metadata author: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology ecnccu@ceh.ac.uk
Other identifier: Envirobase 1322039
UKEOF 473379

Activity Environmental Change Network: Rabbits and deer