Glasgow Natural History Society

Machair Conservation: Successes and Challenges

Proceedings of the Conference at the University of Glasgow 8th December 2008

The Machair Habitat

• John Love: Oh, dear! What can the Machair be?
  
• Colin MacPhail (SAC Local Farm Business Consultant): Traditional and modern crofting practices; trends and current issues
  
• Dave Beaumont: RSPB strategy for machair management with particular reference to birds and achievements of the GYBB Project
• Deborah Long (Plantlife): Machair & coastal pasture: managing priority habitats for native plants and the significance of grazing practices
  
• Paul Walton (RSPB): The conservation of Scottish Machair: a new approach addressing multiple threats simultaneously, in partnership with crofters
  
• Davy MacCracken (SAC): Machair invertebrates: the importance of ‘mosaiciness’
  
• Maria Bogdanova (CEH): Foraging requirements of subadult red-billed choughs in Scotland: the importance of coastal sand grasslands
  

The Great Yellow Bumblebee and Northern Colletes

• Dave Goulson: causes of bumblebee declines with focus on GYBB
• Tom Charman: Phenology of Bombus distinguendus in the Outer Hebrides
• John Bowler: Recent research on the northern Colletes mining bee Colletes floralis Eversmann
• Nicky Redpath, Dave Beaumont, Kirsty Park, Dave Goulson: Machair and the great yellow bumblebee, Bombus distinguendus − a comparison of machair restoration techniques
• Rose Hanley-Nickolls: Examining the use of corncrake Crex crex early−cover plots for the conservation of the great yellow bumblebee Bombus distinguendus on North Uist
• Alastair Lavery (RSPB): Outreach and education initiatives
• Stewart Angus (SNH): Dé tha cearr air a’mhachaire? Biodiversity issues for Scottish machair: an initial appraisal

Posters

• Cathy Fiedler: Factors affecting population density of Colletes floralis (Hymenoptera: Apidae) on Islay, Hebrides
  
• R. Gulliver, M. Gulliver, C. Sydes & D. Long: The use of exclosures to produce a favourable grazing regime for the orchid, Spiranthes romanzoffiana, on the dune/hill intergrade − part of the machair complex, on Colonsay, Inner Hebrides, Scotland
  
• Louisa Hancock: Habitat management survey for conservation of the great yellow bumblebee Bombus distinguendus in the Outer Hebrides
  
• Anne MacLellan: Crofting and biodiversity on the Machair of the Western Isles
  
• Lynne Osgathorpe: Croft management and economics:impacts on bumblebee conservation
  
• Maria Scholten, Bill Spoor and Niall Green: Machair corn: diversity and conservation of an historical machair component
  
• Edna Stewart, Morag Mackinnon, Richard Weddle & Lyn Dunachie: collecting wild flower seeds on the Uists for propagation
  
• Maja Kristine Thorsen, Stephen Woodward, David W Hopkins & Blair M McKenzie: Resilience of machair soil to amendment with kelp and synthetic fertilizer
  
• Stefanie Vink, Roy Neilson, David Robinson & Tim Daniell: Above and below ground responses to the Machair agricultural system
  
• Lorna Wilkie: Foraging preferences of the great yellow bumblebee Bombus distinguendus on Orkney
  

The Esmee Fairbairn Trust generously funded the three year project which has been jointly implemented by GNHS and the RSPB. We are also grateful to SNH for a grant towards printing and publication of the proceedings of the conference.