Identification

Title

Eating biodiversity - ecology data, 2005-2007

Abstract

The study is part of the NERC Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme. This project investigated the links between quality food production and biodiversity protection by asking the question: can production systems that use and maintain biodiverse natural grasslands, translate that into a source of additional product value in the production of meat and cheese and therefore benefit rural economies? The aim was to inverse the conventional understanding of landscape or environmental quality as the outcome of well managed farming to explore the idea of natural grassland biodiversity as an input into more sustainable farming and as an integral component of product quality. This dataset consists of the grassland botanical composition and chemical soil analyses resulting from this project. A botanical field survey of a number of sample grazing sites on selected case study farms records the plant species present within a representative area of phytosociologically homogeneous vegetation and the percentage cover that each species vertically projects onto the ground surface. Soil analyses of sample sites determines soil composition, pH and minerals. Land management, consumer opinion and nutritional data from this study are available at the UK Data Archive under study number 6159 (see online resources). Further documentation for this study may be found through the RELU Knowledge Portal and the project's ESRC funding award web page (see online resources).

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/studies/study?id=6159

name: UK Data Service project web page

description: Eating Biodiversity: An Investigation of the Links between Quality Food Production and Biodiversity Protection.

function: information

http://relu.data-archive.ac.uk/site-search?search=RES-224-25-0041

name: Relu Data Support Service

description: Project: Eating biodiversity: realising the links between quality food production and biodiversity protection.

function: information

https://eidc.ac.uk/contactus

name: Contact the EIDC for access to this data

function: download

Unique resource identifier

code

1288183633864

codeSpace

CEH:EIDC:

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

biota

farming

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Land Use

originating controlled vocabulary

title

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-06-01

Keyword set

keyword value

Rural Economy and Land Use Programme

Eating Biodiversity: An Investigation of the Links between Quality Food Production and Biodiversity Protection

Organic farming

Animal husbandry

Grasslands

Food

Consumers

Biodiversity

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-5.01

East bounding longitude

1.69

North bounding latitude

56.12

South bounding latitude

50.23

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

2005-03-01

End position

2007-06-30

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-09-18

Frequency of update

notPlanned

Quality and validity

Lineage

Research funded by Economic and Social Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Award Number: RES-224-26-0041 Botanical inventory and soil analyses on 42 selected case study farms with biodiverse grassland types: 12 lamb farms, 15 beef farms, 12 cheese farms, 3 control farms. Three grassland communities (mesotrophic, acid and calcareous) were so selected, represented by saltmarsh, moorland and heather for sheep farming; acid, calcareous and wet-neutral grasslands for beef farming; and circumneutral for on-farm cheese production. These were located using existing vegetation maps and surveys. For the botanical survey plant species were identified and their frequency recorded, as well as site and vegetation description, soil profile, soil depth, slope, aspect, stand area, sample area, mean height of layers of vegetation, altitude and geology. The data recorded on species cover and the calculated frequency class was then used to assign the assessed stand of vegetation to a published community or sub-community. For soil analyses 100 g soil samples were taken for each site to determine: - sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium in soil by ICP-AES - phosphate-phosphorus in soil by colorimetry - pH in soil and water

Conformity

Conformity report

specification

title

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-12-08

degree

explanation

Data format

name of format

Comma-separated values (CSV)

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

University of Exeter

email address

h.buller@exeter.ac.uk

responsible party role

principalInvestigator

Responsible party

organisation name

University of Bristol

email address

jeff.wood@bristol.ac.uk

responsible party role

owner

Responsible party

organisation name

IGER, North Wyke

email address

robert.dunn@bbsrc.ac.uk

responsible party role

owner

Responsible party

organisation name

University of Nottingham

email address

carol.morris@nottingham.ac.uk

responsible party role

owner

Responsible party

organisation name

Countryside and Community Research Institute

email address

rwan@glos.ac.uk

responsible party role

owner

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

Environmental Information Data Centre

full postal address

Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg

Lancaster

LA1 4AP

UK

email address

info@eidc.ac.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2021-06-25T18:37:42

Metadata language

eng