I wanted to be a forester, but forestry in the early seventies, seemed to be more economics than ecology, so after a degree in Agricultural and Forest Sciences at Oxford, I studied bramble growth in Wytham Woods for my D.Phil. This led me into various casual survey jobs before joining the Nature Conservancy Council in 1979 as a woodland ecologist. My role there was as a specialist in forestry and woodland work (science and policy) across NCC/English Nature/Natural England until 2012 when I retired back to Oxford.
Since then I have been a visiting researcher in the Department of Plant Sciences continuing my research interests particularly in long-term changes in the woodland ground flora. Other recent work has involved woodland grazing and rewilding and exploring the diaries of Charles Elton from 1942-1965. In my role with the agency and subsequently I have tried to publish in both peer-reviewed and more popular journals (such as British Wildlife and Quarterly Journal of Forestry), because on the whole it is the latter that practitioners actually read. Similarly, I have tried to build bridges by being an active member of both the British Ecological Society and the Institute of Chartered Foresters.
Recent Updates:
Spring/Summer 2018:
Spring 2018 saw the handing over to the publishers (Pelagic Press) of a text for a revised woodland survey handbook. This feels a bit old-fashioned in these days of drones, Lidar, Satellite imagery, but if government agencies and others are going to put money into protecting and managing woods in Britain, then someone, at some point, has to go and look at what they are like on the ground. What we have tried to do is provide a recipe book that people can use to plan and carry out such surveys.
Summer field work has been dominated by re-recording of the Dawkins Plots in Wytham: 163 10×10 m permanent plots (established in 1974). Recording the vegetation in them is the easy part (lists of vascular plants, dimensions of the trees); finding them can be painful. They are marked by underground metal markers offset from I metre high wooden posts. However, if the posts have fallen/been moved/are hidden under 2m high bramble; if the metal markers are in an area littered with brass shotgun cartridge remains or 0.303 bullets (past deer culling, WW1 practice areas), then setting up the plots can take some time. The results will give us a picture of the vegetation at the onset of the Ash Dieback in the woods. Once again, I must acknowledge the amazing foresight of Colyear Dawkins, forester and statistician, who set up the plot system in 1974.
Winter 2018/19:
Autumn and winter has largely been spent working on text and illustrations for a book about woodland plants in the British Wildlife series, which I hope to get to the publishers by mid-summer.
Contact details:
Blog: https://theoldmanofwytham.com
Tel: 0755 728 2711
Address: Department of Plant Sciences, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RB
Recent Publications:
Jefferson, R.J. & Kirby, K.J. 2018. A scent of musk – the ‘life and times’ of Moschatel, the Good Friday flower.. British Wildlife 30, 79-85.
Maes, S. L., Blondeel, H., Perring, M. P., Depauw, L., Brūmelis, G., Brunet, J., Decocq, G., Den Ouden, J., Härdtle, W., Hédl, R., Heinken, T., Heinrichs, S., Jaroszewicz, B., Kirby, K., Kopecký, M., Máliš, F., Wulf, M. & Verheyen, K. 2019. Litter quality, land-use history, and nitrogen deposition effects on topsoil conditions across European temperate deciduous forests. Forest Ecology and Management, 433, 405-418.
Kirby, K. J. 2018. What sort of treescapes do we want in Britain and what can we reasonably expect: a personal reflection. Arboricultural Journal, published online 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/03071375.2018.1420294
Perring, M. P., Bernhard-Romermann, M., Baeten, L., Midolo, G., Blondeel, H., Depauw, L., Landuyt, D., Maes, S. L., De Lombaerde, E., Caron, M. M., Vellend, M., Brunet, J., Chudomelová, M., Decocq, G., Diekmann, M., Dirnbock, T., Dorfler, I., Durak, T., De Frenne, P., Gilliam, F. S., Hedl, R., Heinken, T., Hommel, P., Jaroszewicz, B., Kirby, K. J., Kopecky, M., Lenoir, J., Li, D., Malis, F., Mitchell, F. J. G., Naaf, T., Newman, M., Petrik, P., Reczynska, K., Schmidt, W., Standovar, T., Swierkosz, K., Van Calster, H., Vild, O., Wagner, E. R., Wulf, M. & Verheyen, K. 2018. Environmental change effects on plant functional trait and species-richness trajectories depend upon management legacies. Global Change Biology. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14030
Kirby K J and Hall, J. In press. Woodland Survey Handbook: collecting data for conservation in British woodland. Pelagic Press.
Kirby, K.J. & Thomas, R.C. 2017. Restoration of broadleaved woodland under the 1985 Broadleaves Policy stimulates ground flora recovery at Shabbington Woods, southern England. New Journal of Botany, 7, 125-135. https://doi.org/10.1080/20423489.2017.1408177
Kirby, K.J., Goldberg, E.A. & Orchard, N. 2017. Long-term changes in the flora of oak forests and of oak:spruce mixtures following removal of conifers. Forestry 90, 136-147, doi: 10.1093/forestry/cpw049
Verheyen, K., De Frenne, P., Baeten, L., et al. (2017). Combining community resurvey data to advance global change research. Bioscience 67,73-83
Kirby, K.J., Buckley, G.P. & Mills, J. (2017). Biodiversity implications of coppice decline, transformations to high forest and coppice restoration in British woodland. Folia Geobotanica 52, 5-13. DOI 10.1007/s12224-016-9252-1
Kirby, K.J. 2017 One man and his log: Charles Elton’s pioneering studies of dead wood at Wytham Woods. Quarterly Journal of Forestry 111(1) 52-58.
Kirby, K.J. Walking back in Time: Conservation in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, 1942-65, from the Diaries of Charles Elton. Fritillary 7. http://www.fritillary.org.uk/
Kirby, K. J., Goldberg, E. A., Isted, R., Perry, S. C. & Thomas, R. C. (2016). Long-term changes in the tree and shrub layers of a British nature reserve and their relevance for woodland conservation management. Journal for Nature Conservation, 31, 51-60. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1617138116300188
Kirby, K.J. (2016). The transition of Wytham Woods from a working estate to unique research site (1943-1965). Landscape History. 37, 79-92. DOI: 10.1080/01433768.2016.1249725
Mitchell, R.J., Hewison, R.L., Hester, A.J., Broome, A., Kirby, K.J. (2016) Potential impacts of the loss of Fraxinus excelsior due to ash dieback on woodland vegetation in Great Britain. New Journal of Botany, 6, 2-15, DOI:10.1080/20423489.2016.1171454
Kirby, K.J. (2016). Charles Elton and Wytham Woods. British Wildlife 27, 256-263.
Kirby, K.J. (2015) Changes in the vegetation of clear-fells and closed canopy stands in an English oak wood over a 30-year period. New Journal of Botany, 5, 1-12 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/2042349715Y.0000000001
Plieninger, T., Hartel, T., Martín-López, B., Beaufoy, G., Bergmeier, E., Kirby, K., Montero, M. J., Moreno, G., Oteros-Rozas, E. & Van Uytvanck, J. 2015. Wood-pastures of Europe: Geographic coverage, social–ecological values, conservation management, and policy implications. Biological Conservation, 190, 70-79.
Kirby, K.J. (2015) What might a sustainable population of trees in wood-pasture sites look like? Hacquettia, 14, 43-52. http://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/hacq.2015.14.issue-1/hacq-2015-0010/hacq-2015-0010.xml
Bernhardt-Römermann, M., Baeten, L., Craven, D., et al. (2015), Drivers of temporal changes in temperate forest plant diversity vary across spatial scales. Global Change Biology, 21, 3726–3737.
Götmark, F., Kirby, K. & Usher, M. (2015). Strict reserves, IUCN classification, and the use of reserves for scientific research: a comment on Schultze et al. (2014). Biodiversity and Conservation, 3621-3625. DOI 10.1007/s10531-015-1011-8
Lorimer, J., Sandom, C., Jepson, P., Doughty, C.E., Barua, M. and Kirby, K.J. (2015). Rewilding: Science, Practice, and Politics. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 40, 39-62.
Kirby K J & Watkins, C (editors) (2015) Europe’s changing woods and forests: from wildwood to managed landscapes. CABI,Wallingford, UK.
Kirby, K.J. 2015. Battling forestry and building consensus: woodland conservation post 1949. In: Nature’s Conscience – The Life and Legacy of Derek Ratcliffe (eds. D.B.A. Thompson, H.H. Birks & H.J.B. Birks), Langford Press, pp. 359-372.
Willis, K.J. & Kirby, K.J. 2015. Biodiversity in the green economy: what biodiversity do we need? In Biodiversity in the Green Economy, (eds A Gasparatos &K J Willis), Routledge, London, pp.19-31.