Recent pine woodland dynamics in east Glen Affric, northern Scotland, from highly resolved palaeoecological analyses

Glen Affric, a National Nature Reserve of international conservationimportance for plant and animal communities associated withScots pine (Pinus sylvestris) woodland is managed for natureconservation and woodland restoration at a landscape scale.Management plans have drawn on information on current standstructure and variation but have not used in any detailed waythe analyses of past tree population changes from sources, suchas pollen analyses. This paper reports the results of pollenanalyses from three small peat hollows at the head of Loch Beinna' Mheadhoin. The analyses demonstrate, first, that woods inthe east of the reserve several centuries ago were differentin species composition and were more varied than they are todayand, second, that the currently patchy Pinus wood in the westof the reserve, at the head of Loch Beinn a' Mheadhoin, is theresult of recent spread westward onto former heathland. Thistemporal and spatial variability in the recent past has implicationsfor the future management of the woods because future woodsmay not develop with the characteristics of the current stands,and may not be stable over time.