Main banner photo by Ian Dow / ACT

In August 2024, we launched an exciting new Rainforest Restoration Project, working with partners including NatureScot, the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, the James Hutton Institute, the University of Aberdeen, and the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest. This project seeks to restore rainforest sites that have been invaded by Rhododendron ponticum, one of the most significant threats to Scotland’s rainforest.

Rhododendron ponticum, photo by Ian Dow/ACT

Why this matters

Rhododendron ponticum is present in over 30% of Scotland’s temperate rainforest habitats. Its dense growth shades out native species, disrupts soil health, and limits biodiversity. Alongside overgrazing, climate change, and plant disease, it poses a major challenge to rainforest recovery.

Clearing R. ponticum is only the beginning. Research shows that biodiversity levels in cleared sites often remain low for decades. This project hopes to build upon the existing knowledge base to investigate what is holding colonisation and recovery of these sites back, with the aim of creating an evidenced based toolkit that can be used to enhance our restoration projects here in Argyll, and provide a process that can be adopted across the wider rainforest zone.

What we’re investigating

Over the next 12 months, working with our project partners, we will be carrying out investigations into the following areas of rainforest ecology:

• Soil fungi and nutrient availability
  Using eDNA methods, we’ll be investigating the extent to which soil fungi communities shift both during and after R. ponticum invasion, and whether this can be linked to nutrient availability within the soil.
• Seed dispersal
  Using seed traps, we’ll determine how much seed is arriving (being blown on the wind) at sites that have been cleared of R. ponticum, and whether the amount of ‘seed rain’ can explain the absence of some species from certain sites.
• Seed-sowing trials
  Using ‘ex-situ’ experiments, we’ll conduct some seed-sowing trials, seeding directly onto soil samples (collected from rainforest sites and transferred to pots in a polytunnel) that has received treatments such as scarification and/or nutrient addition.
• Lichen reintroduction
  Surveying lichen epiphyte communities to determine which species are most at risk from R. ponticum invasion, with paired translocation experiments to reintroduce species we identify as being lost from invaded sites.

Amanita muscaria, photo by Ian Dow/ACT

What’s next

These investigations will be carried out during 2025 with on-site interventions (based on the findings) being carried out in 2026, supporting the Rainforest Squad as they continue R. ponticum removal, providing a comprehensive restoration package for Scotland’s rainforest.

For more information about the project please contact Ian Dow [email protected]. 

Find out more about our work to Save Argyll's Rainforest

             

Lobaria, Ricasolia, Nephroma and Pectenia                       Veteran Oak populations, photos by Ian Dow/ACT