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Originally Posted by Paul mabbott  Pleased to see you keeping an open mind - I wish more could do that! 
A couple of points, briefly: I doubt that we shall ever know the answer to the 'native/not' debate because the arguments tend to get rather circular - the only way we can date the presence of any tree is from pollen analysis - unfortunately we can't tell the difference between the Acer pollens!
Anyway, my view is that it doesn't matter - organisms that got over before the Channel opened are rather a random selection ...
It would, indeed be interesting - indeed in northern woods there is no evidence that in the long term sycamore takes over a wood, any more than ash, oak or beech.... but that needs someone to monitor it regularly for a couple of centuries .... I would but ....
Cheers, Paul |
I'd agree with Paul's comment about northern woods - I've don't know of any where the sycamore has been more of a problem than ash or beech and probably the worst tree for supressing growth of other species I've seen is holly. I know of a couple of woods where almost the entire ground layer has been lost under holly. The comment I'd make in general terms about conservation management is that all too often in the past it has been reduced to a formula - like sycamore is bad get rid of it or grazing is bad put a fence up. I think every wood is probably different in terms of its species compostion, grazing regime, geology, aspect, history etc and all these need to be taken into account in preparing a management plan. Sometimes stopping grazing or getting rid of sycamore might be best - but not always.
By the way glad I could help with the articles Sven.