Mike Shewring

Mike Shewring

@mikeshewring.bsky.social

Ecologist / conservation scientist

871 followers2.8K following81 posts

Mike Shewring reposted

Dr Scott J. Davidson
@wetlandresilienceresearchgroup.com

It’s my favourite time of year on a peatland! Scroll through the photos from four #PeatColours sites below to see how their colours change through the seasons. Each box in the colour index comes from a photograph taken at that site during the year. #peatlandsmatter #peatlands

Mike Shewring reposted

Joey Pickard
@bootlegbryos.bsky.social

Had a fantastic day talking all things peat at the Gower Show!

Adfer Natur CIC@adfernatur.bsky.social

💚 We had a wonderful day at the Gower Show today! 🌿 It was a pleasure chatting with farmers, local representatives and visitors about the work of Adfer Natur CIC, peatland restoration and our upcoming surveys on Gower.

Mike Shewring reposted

Joey Pickard
@bootlegbryos.bsky.social

If you’re in South Wales and fancy coming to speak to us about the peatlands of Gower at the Gower Show tomorrow, come and find Adfer!

Adfer Natur CIC@adfernatur.bsky.social

Adfer Natur is going to be at the Gower Show tomorrow at Penrice Castle to talk about all things peat, including our work this year on Rhossili Down. We’re over in the Gower National Landscapes tent and we’d love to see you there!

Mike Shewring reposted

Sarah Hickey
@sarahehickey.bsky.social

I always think it's amazing how much water seeps out of the hills...but we do need rain now! #peatlands

Manx Peat Partnership@manxpeat.bsky.social

We definitely need more rain 🙏🏻💦 however it is good to see that our work is helping to keep the hills wet. Slowing the flow of water is especially important in prolonged dry weather, but is also important after heavy rain as it can reduce erosion 😊 #peatland

Mike Shewring reposted

Joey Pickard
@bootlegbryos.bsky.social

Really nice good news story from our Welsh peatland restoration area

Adfer Natur CIC@adfernatur.bsky.social

Last week Mike and Joey from Adfer Natur delivered training for BSG Ecology on peatland habitat management design. As part of this training the group visited Cregan, a forest to bog peatland site that was delivered in 2023 by the Lost Peatlands project, with the restoration designed by Mike and Joey

Mike Shewring reposted

Joey Pickard
@bootlegbryos.bsky.social

A very rewarding day to be out not only delivering training for BSG Ecology on peat and habitat management, but to find water vole latrines on a forest to bog site that in November 2023 looked like this, a bare stump flipped landscape. An incredible change in only 2.5 years!

Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

4/ Track density varies most by land use: highest on wind farms (0.49 km/km²) & grouse moors (0.25), lowest on land managed for conservation (0.09). Designation alone isn't preventing track development in sensitive places.

Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

2/ The model (F1 = 84%) mapped 5,190 km of surfaced hill track across GB, at a mean density of 0.29 km/km². Scotland holds the most (3,392 km), with the densest hotspots in SE Wales & NE Scotland. Automated detection replaces slow, manual mapping.

Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

3/ Why it matters: ~1,815 km run over deep peat — our largest terrestrial carbon store. And designation doesn't seem to help — track density is basically the same inside & outside SACs/SPAs (0.27 vs 0.30 km/km²), and higher in National Parks (0.35).

Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

Nice blog post from Tom Aspinall at @rspb.bsky.social for the @iucn-uk-peat.bsky.social on how we can build landscapes that are resilient to fire www.iucn-uk-peatland programme.org/blog/tom-aspinall/building-fire-resilience-natures-way

iucn-uk-peatlandprogramme.orgBuilding fire resilience, nature's way | IUCN UK Peatland ProgrammeIn this guest blog, RSPB Senior Policy Officer Tom Aspinall presents his views on the journey from fire risk to resilience for UK peatlands.

Mike Shewring reposted

Mike Peacock
@peatymike.bsky.social

Calling all peaty people. Still time to submit to our special issue on peatlands. Details below. Free free to DM/email me if you want to ask any questions.

Mike Peacock@peatymike.bsky.social

Peaty people: we're hosting a special issue in the Taylor & Francis journal Sustainable Environment. Do consider submitting to it - the scope is broad and multidisciplinary. think.taylorandfrancis.com/article_coll...

Mike Shewring reposted

Adfer Natur CIC
@adfernatur.bsky.social

Prynhawn Da Pawb! If anyone is at the IUCN peatland conference Adfer Natur has a stand set up and we’d love to talk to you! We’re right next to the main IUCN desk. We have microscopes set up for the duration of the conference so if you have samples from field trips, bring them to us for a look & ID

Mike Shewring reposted

Joey Pickard
@bootlegbryos.bsky.social

PSA for any of my peaty friends who are at the IUCN - bring me your Sphagnum and mosses and liverworts that you find on your field trips and I’ll ID them for you if needed and you can use our set up to take some photos under the microscope that I can send you. Bring on your peat and bog finds!

Adfer Natur CIC@adfernatur.bsky.social

Prynhawn Da Pawb! If anyone is at the IUCN peatland conference Adfer Natur has a stand set up and we’d love to talk to you! We’re right next to the main IUCN desk. We have microscopes set up for the duration of the conference so if you have samples from field trips, bring them to us for a look & ID

Mike Shewring reposted

TK (Takashi DY) Kozai
@bioniclab.bsky.social

🪼 Your tax dollars paid a scientist to squeeze jellyfish through cheesecloth. Osamu Shimomura processed tens of thousands on an NSF grant to understand why they glow. He found a protein that glowed green under UV light. Called it "green protein." Nobody cared. For decades.

Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

⚠️ 2.3 million people — 19% of the affected regional population — were exposed above the WHO PM2.5 threshold This research adds important evidence to ongoing debates around upland land management. Prescribed burning is not just a biodiversity or carbon question — it's a public health one too.

iopscience.iop.orgPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limitPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limit, Graham, Ailish M, Spracklen, Dominick V, Shewring, Mike P, Douglas, David J T, Pope, Richard J, Chipperfield, Martyn P
Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

Many thanks to my co-authors for a really rewarding collaboration on this. 📄 Full paper: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... #Peatlands #AirQuality #PM25 #UplandsManagement #PrescribedBurning #Conservation #PublicHealth #RemoteSensing

iopscience.iop.orgPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limitPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limit, Graham, Ailish M, Spracklen, Dominick V, Shewring, Mike P, Douglas, David J T, Pope, Richard J, Chipperfield, Martyn P
Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

Delighted to share our new paper, just published in Environmental Research Letters, on the air quality (AQ) impacts of prescribed moorland burning. We combined burn area estimates, fire hotspot data, and meteorological records to estimate emissions, then a AQ model to simulate population exposure.

iopscience.iop.orgPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limitPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limit, Graham, Ailish M, Spracklen, Dominick V, Shewring, Mike P, Douglas, David J T, Pope, Richard J, Chipperfield, Martyn P
Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

The headline findings are striking: 🔥 Moorland burning produces 0.7–1.6 kT of PM2.5 per year — equivalent to ~30% of PM2.5 from all road transport in the UK 👥 On active burning days, more than 2.32 million people on average were exposed to at least a 5% increase in PM2.5 concentrations

iopscience.iop.orgPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limitPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limit, Graham, Ailish M, Spracklen, Dominick V, Shewring, Mike P, Douglas, David J T, Pope, Richard J, Chipperfield, Martyn P
Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

🌬️ On peak burning days, 2.69 million people experienced a 15%+ increase 📍 In Yorkshire & Humber, North East England, and East Scotland, 100% of the population experienced at least one day above that 5% threshold across the burn season

iopscience.iop.orgPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limitPrescribed moorland burning in Great Britain exposes 2.3 million people to PM2.5 levels exceeding the WHO 24 h guideline limit, Graham, Ailish M, Spracklen, Dominick V, Shewring, Mike P, Douglas, David J T, Pope, Richard J, Chipperfield, Martyn P

Mike Shewring reposted

Joey Pickard
@bootlegbryos.bsky.social

Hey #PeatSky, going to be at the IUCN conf in Swansea? come and say hi! On day 1 I’m on the Adfer Natur CIC stall with my directors hat on, day 2 I’m doing some of the Rhigos trip for Swansea Uni, day 3 I’m part of the AM EC workshop for BES and the PM community engagement workshop for Adfer Natur

Mike Shewring reposted

Kyra Simone
@sciencewithkyra.bsky.social

Very excited to announce that my first PhD research paper is out! 🎉 We think shallow #peatlands represent #ClimateChange "sentinels" for deeper peats, but we don't know much about their #evapotranspiration (ET) dynamics 🧵 doi.org/10.1002/hyp.70558 @nobel-water.bsky.social #PeatPaper #OpenAccess

doi.orgPersistent Evapotranspiration in a Shallow Boreal Shield Peatland Despite Summer Drought: Implications for Ecohydrological ResilienceWe examine energy balance and evapotranspiration dynamics in a shallow peatland as an analogue for projected climate change impacts in deeper peatlands. Across nine growing seasons, we document simil...

Mike Shewring reposted

Dr. Merritt Rae Turetsky
@queenofpeat.bsky.social

Boglands around the world are considered wastelands and continue to be destroyed to make room for more “productive” land. With this ignorance, we lose some of the most beautiful, diverse, and innovative ecosystems-and one of our best climate allies. Please share and become a #BogChampion.

Mike Shewring reposted

William (Bill) Sutherland
@billsutherland.bsky.social

This is such an important and engaging book (including an excellent chapter on our work on evidence-based conservation). Makes a completely compelling case for learning what is effective and then doing what we know works and not doing what we know doesn’t work.

Mike Shewring reposted

RSPB Science
@rspbscience.bsky.social

RSPB Scientist Simon Wotton shares a summary of the results from two recently published reports: Breeding Bird Survey and Wetland Bird Survey. Read on to learn more about the ups and downs of the UK’s birds www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happen... #CitSci @jncc.bsky.social @btobirds.bsky.social 🪶 🧪

rspb.org.ukTwo new reports reveal how the UK’s birds are faringLittle Egrets continue to rise whilst Blue Tits are declining. Read on to learn more about the ups and downs of the UK’s birds.

Mike Shewring reposted

Alice Milner
@alicemmilner.bsky.social

We've written a piece for @uk.theconversation.com accompanying our #PeatQuest study identifying priority questions in #peatland science, explaining how the questions aren't just technical priorities, but encompass communities, livelihoods, power and fairness. theconversation.com/peatlands-ar...

theconversation.comPeatlands are vital for tackling climate change, yet scientists still haven’t found them allPeatlands are central to climate change, yet basic questions remain unanswered. A global research community has mapped out what we most urgently need to know.
Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

The Welsh Government's own Nature Recovery Action Plan 2026 is telling. There's a whole aim on 'evidence and monitoring' — but it's almost entirely about tracking species status and reporting against targets.

Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

So why don’t we see more of this in Wales? If you can name such a project, please tell me! I’m struggling. I think the focus of funding from Welsh Government on capital expenditure coupled with the between year uncertainty in funding inhibits any long term evidence base building.

Mike Shewring
@mikeshewring.bsky.social

Perhaps as a result of this there is also a capacity issue and an over reliance on expert knowledge (which is not the same thing as evidence). Rather than building the knowledge of what works through identifying questions and testing solutions.