Fossil insect remains as indicators of the primeval forest; a modern analogue approach.

在整个欧洲，原生林地是一种具有高度文化、科学和自然保护重要性的稀缺资源。在最近发表的一项假说中，丹麦林地生态学家弗兰斯·维拉（Frans Vera）认为，目前欧洲对“封闭”林冠林地的管理政策正在影响森林中专门植物和动物的持续生存能力。许多地点对这些特殊物种非常有价值。维拉认为，大型食草动物在原始欧洲的“野生森林”中发挥了重要作用，因此森林远没有被封闭，实际上是相当开放的。这与“野生森林”是一个封闭的树冠森林的既定思想形成鲜明对比，因此对古代林地遗址的管理旨在保持和/或恢复遗址的自然生态状态，一直致力于这一假设。维拉的论点的含义是明确的：如果他是正确的，我们一直在以不正确的方式管理这些珍贵的网站（和它们的物种），因此有危及它们未来的危险。为了确定“野林”是封闭的还是开放的，我们可以转向生活在“野林”时代的植物和动物的化石记录，以确定这两种理论中哪一种是大致正确的。化石甲虫是非常有用的指示过去的环境，特别是林地环境。申请人之前的工作已经确定，甲虫有相当大的潜力来确定维拉的想法是否得到了证据的证实，但我们需要完善我们对昆虫化石记录的含义以及我们如何解释它的理解。本质上，我们需要更好地了解甲虫化石记录中的“开放”或“封闭”林地可能是什么样子。在这个项目中，我们将从一系列具有不同树冠结构（开放式、中间式和封闭式）和记录良好的管理系统（包括放牧和割草）的古代林地中收集最近的昆虫化石数据。最近的化石数据将从这些古老林地中间小池塘底部松散沉积物中采集的沉积物样品中收集。不管是什么昆虫生活在林地里，一部分最终会沉积在这里。这些最近的化石可能代表了过去几十年来生活在附近的个体。我们将从管理记录中了解到，池塘周围的地区在这段时间内没有发生重大变化。通过研究最近的甲虫化石，并将这些化石与周围的林地、它们的树冠结构和管理进行统计，我们将能够确定每个遗址在化石记录中的化石“指纹”。这将使我们能够确定这些类型的林地的广泛特征，这些特征可能会在化石记录中找到。我们必须研究最近的化石，而不是现代收集的甲虫，因为我们关心的是对化石记录的解释，而不是对现代昆虫区系的解释。当然，我们的研究地点不会为我们提供一个完整的潜在类型的林地，可能已经存在于过去，但他们应该让我们区分“开放”和“封闭”树冠林地，并可能，建立管理的重要性，对他们的昆虫动物群的影响。最后，我们将整理和重新分析已发表的欧洲甲虫化石数据，可追溯到c。9000 - 5000年前和一些更早的地点，根据对森林环境中甲虫特征的深入了解。这将使我们能够产生一个更强大的环境重建原生的“野生森林”和测试是否天然的“野生森林”确实是封闭或开放的树冠，提供矛盾或支持的证据对景观结构确定的维拉和其持续的可行性。

Native woodland is a scarce resource of high cultural, scientific and nature conservation importance throughout Europe. In a recently published hypothesis, a Danish woodland ecologist, Frans Vera, has argued that the current European management policy towards 'closed' canopy woodland is affecting the continued viability of specialised plants and animals of the forest. Many sites are highly valued for these specialised species. Vera argues that large herbivores played an important role in maintaining substantial open areas in the 'wildwood' of primeval Europe, so that the forest, far from being closed, was in fact quite open. This is contrast to the established thinking that the 'wildwood' was a closed canopy forest and so management of ancient woodland sites, which aims to maintain and/or restore sites to their natural ecological state, has been geared towards this assumption. The implications of Vera's argument are clear: if he is correct, we have been managing these precious sites (and their species) in an incorrect manner and are thus are danger of compromising their future. In order to establish whether the 'wildwood' was indeed closed or open, we can turn to the fossil record of plants and animals living at the time of the 'wildwood' to establish which of these two theories are broadly correct. Fossil beetles are very useful indicators of past environments and especially woodland environments. Previous work by the applicants has already established that beetles have considerable potential to establish whether Vera's ideas are borne out by the evidence, but we need to refine our understanding of what the fossil insect record means and how we interpret it. Essentially, we need to have a better idea of what 'open' or 'closed' woodland may look like in the fossil beetle record. In this project, we will collect recent fossil insect data from a range of ancient woodlands with different canopy structures (open, intermediate and closed) and well-recorded management systems, including grazing and mowing. The recent fossil data will be collected from sediment samples taken from the loose sediments at the base of small ponds in the middle of these ancient woodlands. A proportion of whatever insects are living in the woodlands will end up being deposited here. These recent fossils will probably represent individuals living in the vicinity over the last couple of decades. We will know from managment records that the areas sorrounding the ponds have not substantially changed over this period. By studying the recent fossil beetles and relating these statistically to the surrounding wooded areas, their canopy structure and management, we will be able to identify a fossil 'fingerprint' of what each site looks like in the fossil record. This will allow us to determine the broad characteristics of these types of woodlands which may be found in the fossil record. We have to study recent fossils rather than modern collected beetles as we are concerned with the interpretation of the fossil record, rather than the interpretation of the modern insect fauna. Of course, our study sites will not provide us with a complete range of potential types of woodlands which may have existed in the past, but they should allow us to separate 'open' from 'closed' canopy woodland and, possibly, establish the importance of management influences on their insect faunas. Finally, we will then collate and re-analyse published European fossil beetle data dating to c. 9,000-5,000 years ago and some selected earlier sites, in the light of refined understanding of beetle characteristics from forest environments. This will allow us to produce a more robust environmental reconstruction of native 'wildwood' and test whether the natural 'wildwood' was indeed closed or open canopy, providing contradictory or supporting evidence towards the landscape structure identified by Vera and its continued viability.