Golf
W
e do this job because we love it! Having said that, opportunities to visit Askernish Golf Course on the Isle of South Uist are
few and far between. Much has already been said about this wonderful golf course and one quickly runs out of superlatives when trying to describe it, although two previous articles in Pitchcare do come close - search for ‘As Nature Intended’ and ‘Looking for the Legend’. As we walk through different habitats, we
observe that particular types of plants grow communally and are associated with certain environments. As way back as 1923, Sir Arthur George Tansley recognised that organisms exist within communities. This is related to a number of factors: geology, soil type, hydrology and management are all significant. And, although there aren’t any habitats in Britain that could properly be described as ‘natural’, because of human influence, some areas could be described as semi-natural.
In the 1980s, the production of the
National Vegetation Classification (NVC) aimed to categorise and develop an understanding of the plant communities that occur within Britain as awareness increased that habitats and, as a consequence, species were disappearing. According to the State of Nature Report 2016, we continue to face this challenge today. It was hoped that an increase in an understanding of our natural environment might help prevent the increasing loss of diversity that we are experiencing. After discussing the rough at Askernish Golf Course with Gordon Irvine, the golf course consultant that ‘discovered’ this course initially created by Old Tom Morris, and Allan MacDonald the Head Greenkeeper, it was decided that it would be worth discovering what plants occur there in order to help inform the management process. The field survey followed the methodology
used in the production of the NVC. Within the rough, a 2m x 2m quadrat was used and quadrats were selected within uniform and
homogenous stands of vegetation. All vascular plants were recorded to species or subspecies where possible. Apomictic groups were recorded as an aggregate, i.e. Rubus fruticosus. agg. Nomenclature follows the methodology of Clive Stace when researching New Flora of the British Isles. Percentage cover was assigned by eye as
“a vertical projection on the ground of all the live, above-ground parts of the plant in the quadrat”. These values were assigned to each species, to bare soil and to litter. The total coverage always exceeded one hundred percent ground coverage because of the overlapping nature of the plants. A Modular Analysis of Vegetation
Information System (MAVIS) plot analyser was used to match particular groups with particular NVC communities. These were then assessed against the descriptions in John Rodwell’s British Plant Communities. MAVIS brings all the varied classification
systems together in one place. Ecologists, vegetation scientists and nature reserve managers all have their own systems, and
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