My pronouns are she/her
I studied floodplain meadows - Port Meadow and Pixey Mead - and then created a floodplain meadow at Wytham to test the effect of three treatments after hay cutting. Aftermath grazing by cows or aftermath grazing by sheep and no aftermath grazing (control). As expected, change between treatments was slow. After 20 years it was clear that the control plots were least rich in species. It was estimated that it would take between 80 and 100 years for the vegetation in the grazed plots to become sufficiently rich in species to be compared with Yarnton and Pixey Meads Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
Professor Jan Bakker of the Department of Ecology, the University of Gronigen, provided students each year to record the grassland species in the plots until 2013. Since 2013 Professor David Gowing of the Open University or Dr Andrew Lack of Oxford Brookes University have supervised students recording the plots.
I have also written a book “10,000 years of life beside the Thames.” I now have a partner who will help me prepare it for publication.
