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

原生林地是一种稀缺资源，在整个欧洲具有高度的文化、科学和自然保护重要性。在最近发表的一项假说中，丹麦林地生态学家弗朗斯·维拉认为，目前欧洲对封闭式树冠林地的管理政策正在影响特定森林动植物的持续生存能力。许多遗址对这些特殊物种的价值很高。维拉认为，大型食草动物在维持欧洲原始森林的大量开阔区域方面发挥了重要作用，因此森林非但没有关闭，实际上是相当开放的。这与“野林”是一片封闭的林冠森林的既定观念形成了鲜明对比，因此，旨在维护和/或将遗址恢复到其自然生态状态的古代林地的管理，一直是基于这一假设的。维拉的论点的含义很清楚：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遗址(及其物种)，因此有可能危及它们的未来。为了确定野生森林是封闭的还是开放的，我们可以参考野生森林时代的动植物化石记录来确定这两种理论中的哪一种是大致正确的。甲虫化石是过去环境，特别是林地环境的非常有用的指示器。申请者之前的工作已经证明，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意味着什么以及我们如何解释它的理解。从本质上说，我们需要更好地了解甲虫化石记录中“开放”或“封闭”的林地可能是什么样子。在这个项目中，我们将从不同树冠结构(露天、中间和封育)和有良好记录的管理制度(包括放牧和修剪)的一系列古代林地收集最新的昆虫化石数据。最近的化石数据将从这些古老林地中部小池塘底部的松散沉积物中采集的沉积物样本中收集。林地中生活的任何昆虫的一部分最终都会被存放在这里。这些最近的化石可能代表了过去几十年生活在附近的人。从管理记录中我们会知道，池塘周围的面积在这段时间里没有实质性的变化。通过研究最近的甲虫化石，并将这些数据与周围的林区、它们的树冠结构和管理进行统计关联，我们将能够识别出化石记录中每个地点的化石指纹。这将使我们能够确定在化石记录中可能发现的这些类型林地的广泛特征。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，而不是对现代昆虫动物群的解释。当然，我们的研究地点不会为我们提供过去可能存在的所有潜在类型的林地，但它们应该允许我们区分“开放的”和“封闭的”树冠林地，并可能确定管理对其昆虫区系的影响的重要性。最后，我们将根据对森林环境中甲虫特征的精确理解，整理和重新分析已发表的欧洲甲虫化石数据，这些数据可以追溯到大约9000-5000年前，以及一些选定的更早的地点。这将使我们能够对当地的‘Wildwood’进行更有力的环境重建，并测试天然的‘Wildwood’是否确实是封闭的或开放的树冠，为Vera确定的景观结构及其持续生存提供相互矛盾或支持的证据。

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.