A study in the Journal of Applied Ecology says that there is enough land in the UK for non-food biofuels. The abstract, which is copied on envirolation.org says that there is 3.1m Ha of acceptable land in the UK, that's land that isn't of great ecological importance
The other interesting news from this is that butterflies might do rather well out of Miscanthus and Willow plantations.
Though the abstract didn't talk much about species and seemed to be more interested in the number of butterflies... I think some lepidoptra are quite specialised in terms of habitat and food.
"suggesting the UK government target of 1ยท1 million ha by 2020 is feasible."
The other interesting news from this is that butterflies might do rather well out of Miscanthus and Willow plantations.
Butterfly abundance proved the most appropriate indicator, [of biodiversity] and it was found that total abundance was greater in field margins of both willow and Miscanthus biomass crops than in arable field margins.
Though the abstract didn't talk much about species and seemed to be more interested in the number of butterflies... I think some lepidoptra are quite specialised in terms of habitat and food.
Comments (1)
I would be interested to see what other scientists in this field think of this.
Lepidoptera reminds me of Dartmoor . Some scientific detective work is in order to take this work further.
Posted by Pradeep | March 11, 2009 4:07 AM
Posted on March 11, 2009 04:07