Climoor Experiment: Herbivory and Fungal Infection on Bilberry

Herbivory and fungal infection data were collected from experimental plots at the Climoor field site in Clocaenog Forest, North East Wales. The dataset records the degree of herbivory and infection by the pathogen Valdensia heterodoxa on the deciduous shrub Vaccinium myrtillus (bilberry). Measurements were taken during late summer from 2000 to 2009, coinciding with assessments of vegetative growth and flowering.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal trends in fungal infection pressure on Vaccinium myrtillus from 2000 to 2009.
• Comparing herbivory levels between control and experimental drought treatment plots in 2005 and 2006.
• Investigating correlations between plant phenology (growth/flowering) and biotic stress from herbivores and pathogens.
• Modeling the impact of environmental stressors on a key understory shrub species in a temperate forest ecosystem.

Strengths

• Provides a multi-year time series for fungal infection from 2000 to 2009.
• Includes data from a controlled field experiment with distinct treatment plots (e.g., drought).
• Measurements are synchronized with annual vegetative growth and flowering assessments, enabling phenological correlation.

Limitations

• Dataset is marked as withdrawn on all source platforms, indicating it may be deprecated, unavailable, or superseded.
• Key metadata such as column names, row count, file format, and license are unknown, limiting usability.
• Herbivory data is incomplete, only available for 2000, 2005, and 2006.

Provenance

Source

Environmental Information Data Centre

Collection Method

Field measurements taken at the Climoor experimental site during late August-early September.

Time Range

2000-2009

Freshness

2026-03-11 23:29:25.939794

Geography

Clocaenog Forest, North East Wales, United Kingdom