Field location: Sourhope, Scotland

The research focussed on a grassland system at the Sourhope Research Station in the Cheviot Hills, which is part of the UK Environmental Change Network and was the most thoroughly studied site in the SOAEFD MicroNet programme. Sourhope has extensive areas of upland grassland (Agrostis-Festuca; National Vegetation Classification U4), for which data on microbial diversity were already becoming available. 

The Rigg Foot Experimental Site at Sourhope consisted of five replicate blocks arranged in downslope environmental gradients in the chosen area of grassland. Each block contained six main plots with treatments allocated at random. The main plots were subdivided into sub plots to allow for the individual sampling strategies of award-holders.

 

View of the experimental site at Sourhope

View of the experimental site at Sourhope

Researchers at Sourhope during the Soil Biodiversity Programme

Researchers at Sourhope during the Soil Biodiversity Programme

A snowy view of the Sourhope site during the winter

A snowy view of the Sourhope site during the winter

Preparing experimental plots at the Sourhope site

Preparing experimental plots at the Sourhope site

Location of Sourhope site

Flyer about Sourhope: 

The site sampling protocol: 

 

Ecotron

The Programme also had access to the Ecotron facility, at Imperial College's Silwood Park campus, in which a simplified grassland ecosytem was created with communities of varying diversity to defined taxonomic specifications. A key part of the field and Ecotron-based parts of the Programme involved the introduction of a large pulse of 13C to the grassland ecosystem and monitoring progress of this signal through the soil ecosystem which was manipulated so as to alter its structure. The 13C pulse was added to the Ecotron system early in the life of the Programme and results from these mesocosm studies were used to generate predictions about expected responses in the field. A pulse was added in the field following a period of characterisation and protocol development.

Stable Isotope Facility

The Stable Isotope Facility (SIF) is located at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Lancaster and provides an analytical service for detecting 13C and 15N radio isotopes.