array9

My thesis is that it was smoothed off too well, and therefore it is fairly trivial for water to find its way right down to the bottom, and from then on to increasingly erode channels.  One might accidentally create low spots that form flash ponds.

My idea is that if you randomly created holes, with the spoil banking up downhill you would break-up this pattern , make the ground slightly damper, and possibly increase stabilising plant growth.

The holes could be any size, but for a manual operation one might consider a single shovel full.

This is the same sort of argument as stones in concrete acting to stop cracks, or holes drilled into pelota bats also to stop crack propogation.

This work could be combined with eradication of sapling trees, whereby a sapling is undercut with a spade and the divot placed downhill.

One might have to use additional measures for existing erosion gulleys.

This is like introducing multiple mini-berms randomly over the whole area.

one then hopes that these oases will increase in size and produce a more varied habitat, further reducing erosion.

I suppose it shows that many tidy minds would go for the smooth uniform and end up with a problem patch, whereas the  chaotic mind might end up with a diverse and healthy hill side.

Martin

For example, rabbits, deer, horses, pigs, sheep, and cows.

But it is difficult to judge which were important for which plants.

There were also natural events such as forest fires.

The forest is at present considered to be under grazed.  Which seems a bit strange as we are told that the deer are over- populated and underfed, with the woodland understory largely gone.

Could we get some historical data, about grazing, species, populations, etc from an analysis of the soil?  

The forest is not an easy place to overwinter for many animals, and historical records show the movement of animals on and off the forest.   Particularly pigs and sheep.  

There will also be some migration locally of wild species such as deer.

Yet another tactic is to have highr high breeding rate when the food supply is good.  For instance the rabbit population.

Is it possible that rabbits were a major factor in mintaining the open heathland.  Could the undergrazing be the loss of the rabbit poulation through myxamatosis and haemoragic b virus's?

I am thinking dna and core samples

Thoughts, leads, offers

Martin