Martin Gaywood

• CF, BSc (Hons)PhD, Dip(Man), MCIEEM
• Species Projects Manager/Senior Researcher at NatureScot/University of the Highlands and Islands

In November 2016, the Scottish Government announced that they were minded to allow the two 'trial' reintroduced populations of Eurasian beaver Castor fiber to remain in Scotland and be allowed to expand naturally, and that the species will receive legal protection. This was a historic moment: the first formally approved reintroduction of a mammal s...

The Species Action Framework (SAF) was a bold and innovative five-year programme of targeted management in Scotland that prioritised work on 32 species ranging from sea eagles, to wildcats, beavers, vendace, pine hoverflies, woolly willow, hazel gloves fungus and invasive American mink. The Handbook will be of particular interest to species conserv...

[The Code was produced by Scottish Natural Heritage and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on behalf of the National Species Reintroduction Forum. It was written by Peter Hollingsworth, Martin Gaywood, Sarah Dalrymple, Sally Blyth, Stephen Redpath, Linda Neaves. The formal citation is: National Species Reintroduction Forum 2014. The Scottish Code f...

As the biodiversity crisis accelerates, the stakes are higher for threatened plants and animals. Rebuilding the health of our planet will require addressing underlying threats at many scales, including habitat loss and climate change. Conservation interventions such as habitat protection, management, restoration, predator control, translocation, ge...

Book available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/conservation-translocations/1F4DFBFC5C591DE44457C874A673C2D9 Conservation translocation - the movement of species for conservation benefit - includes reintroducing species into the wild, reinforcing dwindling populations, helping species shift ranges in the face of environmental change, and mov...

The ecological niche and the species-environment relationship are both cornerstones of contemporary ecological science. The realized habitat niche defines the conditions in which a species occurs, is adapted and can thrive, and quantification of the species-environment relationship is a means to describe the realized habitat niche. A frequent, if u...

[This report is also available at the Churchill Fellowship website https://www.churchillfellowship.org/ideas-experts/fellows-directory/martin-gaywood/] Conservation translocation is the movement of species by people for conservation purposes. In the last few decades the numbers of reintroductions and other types of conservation translocations in...

A policy summary of 'Conservation Translocations in a Changing Climate' - the full report can be accessed at ResearchGate or the Churchill Fellowship website https://www.churchillfellowship.org/ideas-experts/fellows-directory/martin-gaywood/

Recent research, has shown that species-environmental relationships and habitat model predictions are often nonstationary in space, time and ecological context. This calls into question modeling approaches that assume a global, stationary ecological realized niche and use predictive modeling to describe it. This paper explores this issue by compari...

Little is known about the factors that drive nonstationarity and inter-individual differences in realized habitat niches and species-environment relationships. We explored this topic by developing individual habitat selection models for 14 wildcat hybrids distributed across Scotland, and assessed how differences in their predicted probabilities of...

[This is published by the Freshwater Biological Association, Information Note 3 - also available at https://www.fba.org.uk/info-notes] Beaver reintroduction and its effects on freshwater biodiversity in Britain. There is a growing interest in the restoration of the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) to Britain. The return of this iconic mammal not only...

Species distribution modeling is widely used to quantify and predict species-environment relationships. Most past applications and methods in species distribution modeling assume context independent and stationary relationships between patterns of species occurrence and environmental variables. There has been relatively little research investigatin...

Introductory text: Conservation translocations - the movement of species for conservation benefit – are some of the most high profile nature interventions in Britain today. With some notable exceptions, many do not always have the direct, large scale biodiversity impacts of major habitat restoration programmes. However, they are visible, ‘concret...

The Scottish Wildcat Action (SWA) project ran from 2015-2020, funded by the Scottish Government, National Lottery Heritage Fund and others. The project implemented the Scottish Wildcat Conservation Action Plan (SWCAP). SWA operated with a team of project staff managed by NatureScot, and associated work was carried out by various partner organisatio...

Chapter and book available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/conservation-translocations/1F4DFBFC5C591DE44457C874A673C2D9 The Eurasian beaver has returned to Britain, presenting fundamental challenges and opportunities for all involved. Beavers will inevitably expand throughout British freshwater systems and provide significant benefits. Uno...

This chapter can be downloaded free at https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/conservation-translocations/1F4DFBFC5C591DE44457C874A673C2D9 The May 2019 IPBES emphasised the scale of the current biodiversity crisis and the need for transformative change, but highlighted that the tools exist to enable this change. Conservation translocation is an incre...

Chapter and book available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/conservation-translocations/1F4DFBFC5C591DE44457C874A673C2D9 Law can influence conservation translocations in two basic ways: it can play a supportive and/or a restrictive role. Regarding the first role, legislation can provide support, a mandate, and/or an obligation to consider o...

Globally, freshwaters are the most degraded and threatened of all ecosystems. In northern temperate regions, beaver (Castor spp.) reintroductions are increasingly used as a low-cost and self-sustaining means to restore river corridors. River modifications by beavers can increase availability of suitable habitat for fish, including salmonids. This s...

Background: Numerous translocations of Eurasian beavers have occurred with little implementation of standardised health screening. Pre-release health screening enables the selection of individuals with the best survival prospects and reduces potential health risks, but this is by-passed during unofficial releases. Beaver reintroduction to Britain...

Eurasian beavers, keystone species, have returned to inhabit much of its former range following near extinction. Evidence repeatedly demonstrates that beavers can provide important riparian biotic and abiotic ecosystem services. These abilities to modify their surroundings can cause conflict, especially in prime agricultural landscapes. Understandi...

Founder genetic composition can affect reintroduction success, especially as the number of animals released tends to be small and therefore less genetically diverse than their source populations. Numerous translocations and reinforcements of beavers, Castor fiber, have occurred with little regard to geographic and/or genetic origin. Beaver reintrod...

Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) populations are expanding across Europe. Depending on location, beaver dams bring multiple benefits and/or require management. Using nationally available data, we developed: a Beaver Forage Index (BFI), identifying beaver foraging habitat, and a Beaver Dam Capacity (BDC) model, classifying suitability of river reaches...

Background There is a long, documented history of the Eurasian beaver Castor fiber and its former abundance throughout Britain (Coles 2006), and it is generally believed to have become extinct in Scotland, through over-hunting, by the 16th century (Kitchener and Conroy 1997). In 2009, an official trial reintroduction of beavers, the Scottish Beaver...

The Scottish Government has announced that they are minded to allow reintroduced populations of Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber), an ecosystem engineer, to remain in Scotland. Some species and habitats of conservation importance may be affected by the activities of an ecosystem engineer. The study had two key objectives: to identify the potential loc...

Potential for habitat restoration is increasingly used as an argument for reintroducing ecosystem engineers. Beaver have well known effects on hydromorphology through dam construction, but their scope to restore wetland biodiversity in areas degraded by agriculture is largely inferred. Our study presents the first formal monitoring of a planned bea...

This introduction to the Species Action Framework (SAF) explains the underlying rationale and how we selected 32 species for targeted action. • Four categories were adopted for brigading species: species conservation; invasive non-native species; conflicts of interest involving native species; and sustainable use of species. • SAF marked a new appr...

• The feasibility and desirability of reintroducing beaver to Scotland has been explored over many decades, and progressed in detail since the mid-1990s. • The inclusion of beaver in the Species Action Framework (SAF) demonstrated the continued interest in beaver reintroduction issues, and prompted a licence application to release beavers at Knapda...

1. In Scotland, UK, beavers became extinct about 400 years ago. Currently, two wild populations are present in Scotland on a trial basis, and the case for their full reintroduction is currently being considered by Scottish ministers. Beavers are widely considered ‘ecosystem engineers’. Indeed, beavers have large impacts on the environment, fundamen...

Introduction: Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) is a large, semi-aquatic, herbivorous rodent that was once found in freshwater habitats from the Chinese-Mongolian border across to its most western distribution in Britain. By the beginning of the 20th century, the species had been driven to near-extinction, largely as a result of over-exploitation by h...

Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) is a large, semi-aquatic, herbivorous rodent that was once found in freshwater habitats from the Chinese-Mongolian border across to its most western distribution in Britain. By the beginning of the 20th century, the species had been driven to near-extinction, largely as a result of over-exploitation by humans, who hun...

Introduction: Conservation translocations involve human movement of species to provide a conservation benefit. This includes bolstering dwindling populations (reinforcement), replacing those that have been lost (reintroduction), or creating populations in new areas where threats are lower (assisted migration). But moving species is not without risk...

The Beavers in Scotland report was presented to Scottish ministers in June 2015. It is the culmination of many years of research, investigation and discussion, and draws on 20 years of work on beavers in Scotland, as well as experience from elsewhere in Europe and North America. It provides a comprehensive summary of existing knowledge and offers f...

This report draws on 20 years of work on beavers in Scotland, as well as experience from elsewhere in Europe and North America. It provides a comprehensive summary of existing knowledge and offers four future beaver scenarios for Ministers to consider. It covers a wide range of topics, including beaver interactions with the natural and human enviro...

The reintroduction of Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) to Scotland has been proposed by many workers and over a considerable period of time (e.g. Macdonald et al., 1995; Rushton et al., 2000; South et al., 2000). Previous work considering the feasibility of a reintroduction has utilised a range of predictive factors from the literature to identify po...

This report has been published to help inform the Scottish Government on its decision on the future of beavers within Scotland (see Gaywood, 2015). Beavers are widely considered to be ‘ecosystem engineers’. This term is reserved for those species that have a large impact on an environment, fundamentally changing ecosystems, and creating highly unus...

Scottish Natural Heritage’s Dr Martin Gaywood assesses the role of reintroduction as a way of conserving species and restoring ecosystems. Keywords: Scotland, conservation translocation, reintroduction, Species Action Framework, species conservation, Eurasian beaver, white-tailed eagle, vend ace, woolly willow, freshwater pearl mussel, pine hoverf...

Reintroduction of beaver (Castor spp) may facilitate rehabilitation of freshwater habitats providing a cost-effective sustainable means of improving ecological conditions. Despite extensive research, debate and consultation, a general consensus on the impact of beaver on fishes has proven elusive because of variability in biological response. This...

In 2008, the Scottish Government approved a licence for the Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), to undertake a five year trial reintroduction of the European beaver Castor fiber after an absence of over 400 years. The aims of the trial include an assessment of the ecology of the beavers, and their effe...

A proposed trial reintroduction of the Eurasian beaver ( Castor fiber L.) to Scotland has recently been approved (May 2008). A previous proposal was turned down by the licensing authority, partly over the perceived risks to woodland within a Special Area of Conservation. This paper presents data on two years of willow ( Salix spp.) and aspen ( Popu...

Conclusions: Two key questions have been addressed in the preparatory work undertaken to date: is it feasible to reintroduce the beaver, and is it publicly desirable? The answer to both questions is a clear ‘yes’, although in both cases there are a number of caveats, some of which will be examined during the trial at Knapdale. A beaver-reintroducti...

This guidance is aimed at those who plan and deliver conservation of terrestrial biodiversity. The six guiding principles described in this document summarise current thinking on how to reduce the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and how to adapt existing plans and projects in the light of climate change. Although this guidance is intended...

Najas flexilis (Willd.) Rostk. & Schmidt is a submerged annual macrophyte, rare in Europe, which is protected under the EC Habitats Directive. N. flexilis appears to be decreasing in the British Isles, its main stronghold in Europe. We outline the environmental conditions required for N. flexilis growth, comparing between present and recently extin...

Najas flexilis (Willd.) Rostk. & Schmidt is a submerged annual macrophyte, rare in Europe, which is protected under the EC Habitats Directive. N. flexilis appears to be decreasing in the British Isles, its main stronghold in Europe. We outline the environmental conditions required for N. flexilis growth, comparing between present and recently extin...

Najas flexilis (Willd.) Rostk. & Schmidt is a submerged annual macrophyte, rare in Europe, which is protected under the EC Habitats Directive. N. flexilis grows in deep, often coloured or turbid water in mesotrophic lakes. Because of this habitat preference it is difficult to locate and assess the ecological state of populations of the species for...

The spatial distribution and associated physical habitat of endangered freshwater pearl mussels (Margaritifera margaritifera) in a 145 km stretch of the River Spey, northeast Scotland, were investigated. The overall size of the Spey M. margaritifera population was estimated to be in the order of 10 million. Mussel distributions were compared with R...

The feasibility of using River Habitat Survey (RHS) data to describe freshwater pearl mussel ( Margaritifera margaritifera ) macrohabitat in the River Spey, north‐east Scotland, was investigated. Mussels were found to be positively associated with a number of RHS variables. These included: boulder/cobble river bed substrates, broken/unbroken standi...

Changes in climate are occurring around the world and the effects on ecosystems will vary, depending on the extent and nature of these changes. In northern Europe, experts predict that annual rainfall will increase significantly, along with dramatic storm events and flooding in the next 50-100 years. Scotland is a stronghold of the endangered fresh...

A trial reintroduction of the European beaver (Castor fiber) to Scotland has been proposed and is awaiting Scottish Executive approval. Currently, no data have been published on the actual effects of beavers on the Scottish landscape, although many authors have predicted potential impacts. Such predictions have been based on the impacts of the beav...

Introduction: The project proposed by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) is a trial which will allow an investigation into the ecology of the European beaver Castor fiber in the Scottish environment, and the effect of its presence on wildlife and land uses. Rigorous scientific monitoring will be a key element of the trial, including the monitoring of...

Historical evidence suggests that Castor fiber Linnaeus 1758, once widely distributed throughout mainland Scotland, became extinct by the sixteenth century. Plans for a trial reintroduction have recently been proposed by SNH (Scottish Natural Heritage). Initial work concentrated on assessing the feasibility of a re-introduction. GIS techniques iden...

Difficulties encountered previously in separating the cocoons and some juveniles of Hirudo medicinalis and Haemopis sanguisuga have been resolved by the present study. The cocoons of Hirudo medicinalis are larger and have a different structure from those of Haemopis sanguisuga. Some of the darker juveniles of Haemopis sanguisuga may be confused wit...

1. One hundred and sixty rivers in Scotland with historical records of freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera margaritifera were surveyed between 1996 and 1999 for the presence of the species.2. M. margaritifera populations were classed as either ‘extinct’ (no mussels remaining), ‘not currently viable’ (ranging from only dead shells present to no ju...

One hundred and sixty rivers in Scotland with historical records of freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera margaritifera were surveyed between 1996 and 1999 for the presence of the species. 2. M. margaritifera populations were classed as either 'extinct' (no mussels remaining), 'not currently viable' (ranging from only dead shells present to no juve...

Snakes are a remarkably successful group of animals, found in a wide range of habitats and on almost every continent. There are some 2,700 species of snakes and these different species have a wide range of physical features and have evolved a variety of life styles. Drawing on the latest research, Martin Gaywood and Ian Spellerberg examine snakes...

Introduction This chapter reviews current knowledge and provides previously unpublished data on habitat selection and requirements of the otter (Lutra lutra) in Britain. Such information is evaluated in an attempt to provide a basis for habitat management aimed at otter conservation, and to expose areas where further research is needed. Since the...

Mortality patterns of marine turtles entangled in fishing gear, found dead at sea or stranded dead on and around the coast of Britain in the period 1992-1996 are described. Of a total of 38 dead turtles identified, 35 were leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) and three were loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta). All D. coriacea were considered...

Introduction (first para): Very occasionally, SNH staff may be asked for information on how to deal with live or dead, entangled or stranded marine turtles. The aim of this advisory note is to provide general information which may be useful to staff and can also be passed on to vets, animal welfare society officers and other relevant parties when n...

One hundred and seventy-one records of marine turtle sightings in or at the boundary of Scottish waters (mainly, but not exclusively within the twelve mile territorial limits) are documented and mapped. There were 101 records (59%) of leatherback turtles Dermochelys coriacea, 15 records of loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta (9%), two records for Ke...

Introduction (1st para): The marsh fritillary butterfly {Eurodryas aurinia) is an attractive species which can be distinguished from Britain's other fritillaries by the row of black dots around the bottom edge on both sides of the hindwings with none on either side of the forewing. It is distributed throughout western Europe, Russia and across temp...

1. The status of the marsh fritillary butterfly Eurodryas aurinia in western Scotland was assessed in 1994 through a preliminary survey of over 80 sites in three regions: the Taynish peninsula; the vicinity of Oban and Loch Etive;· and the Rhinns of Islay. 1994 was a poor year for the species, primarily owing to adverse weather during the flight pe...

A brief summary of reptile thermal ecology is provided and its relevance to the surveying of reptiles discussed. Definitions of key terms commonly used in the field of thermal ecology are given. The results of a case study on the thermal ecology of the adder Vipera berus, grass snake Natrix natrix and smooth snake Coronella austriaca illustrates th...

. Comparisons of the positions of species on Grimes'C-S-R triangular ordination model with their responses to individual environmental gradients indicates that the C-S-R model does not necessarily predict species ecological behaviour. The importance of the stress, productivity and disturbance gradients relative to other environmental gradients need...

As a result of many centuries of lands, our landscape is a patchwork of man-made features and remnants of natural and semi-natural habitats. Viewed from the air, the landscape appears as a mosaic of fields, plantation forests and built-up areas, which are interspersed with wildlife habitats and criss-crossed with linear landscape features such as r...

Semi-natural vegetation in the British countryside, particularly in the lowland, is patchily distributed in a matrix of intensively managed agricultural land, urban area and commercial plantations of introduced conifers. Connecting these remnant patches are linear features of different sorts, hedges, streams, road and railway verges. 2. Linear feat...

p>A comparative study was made of the thermal ecology of the smooth snake Coronella austriaca , the grass snake Natrix natrix and the adder Vipera berus . Particular emphasis was placed on strategies employed in behavioural thermoregulation. Snakes were captured from several sites in Hampshire, England, and kept in landscaped outdoor vivaria. Opera...