Disease in a woodland which has been owned and maintained by the University of Oxford since the 1940s has been investigated by BBC Countryfile.

The visit focused on the threat of ash dieback at the university owned Wytham Woods.

The BBC team met with scientists from Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI) to learn about the site of special scientific interest (SSSI).

Professor Yadvinder Malhi, ecosystems research programme leader at the institute, and Tom Atkins, researcher at the university’s Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, shared what they have learned – during a four-year study at Wytham – with BBC presenters Hamza Yassin and Ellie Harrison.

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The BBC team went up Wytham’s Flux Tower, a scaffolding structure which allows researchers to measure the flows of carbon dioxide and water across the woods.

Prof Malhi said: “Ash dieback is a silent pandemic affecting nature in western Europe.

“Wytham is an ideal place to study ash dieback both in how it is affecting the ash trees and also the wider ecosystem.

“And that is because the woods have such a long history of studies of the mammals, the birds, the other trees and the soil.

“What we’re doing at Wytham is to try to bring together all those range of studies to understand that when you take out the ash trees, how does that cascade through an entire ecosystem.”

Ash dieback is a fungus which originated in Asia.

Its introduction to Europe about 30 years ago has devastated the European ash because the native ash species did not evolve with the fungus and this means it has no natural defence against it.

Wytham Woods is a large carbon sink because it is still recovering from intense land management prior to and during the Second World War, and it is now benefiting from a focus on conservation since the 1960s.

Ash dieback may turn the woods from a carbon sink into a carbon source in the next few years.

This will be closely tracked by researchers working on the new ash dieback project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.

Wytham Woods has been owned and maintained by the University of Oxford since 1942.

The woods are often quoted as being one of the most researched pieces of woodland in the world, and its 1,000 acres are designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The site is rich in flora and fauna, with over 500 species of plants, a wealth of woodland habitats, and 800 species of butterflies and moths.

 

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This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.

Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.

Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1