We have carried out many monitoring projects designed to look for botanical changes over time. Some of these projects are for monitoring vegetation on a landscape scale. Others focus more closely on monitoring populations of particular plant species such as some uncommon mosses and liverworts on rocky mountainsides and along rocky streams in the west Highlands.
We use a variety of botanical monitoring techniques including quadrats, transects and fixed point photography. We have also done monitoring using Site Condition Monitoring (SCM) and Herbivore Impact Assessment (HIA) methodologies to look for changes in various aspects of the condition of vegetation at many sites.
Many of our monitoring projects are to monitor vegetation and flora in relation to land management: for example monitoring vegetation in relation to grazing in woodland in Sutherland, at Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) reserves in Morvern, Ayrshire and East Lothian, and at Forestry and Land Scotland sites in Perthshire.