Slieve Beagh Biodiversity Profile
In the following account of this LCA it should be noted that for consistency, the biodiversity section follows a standard order for all LCAs even though some of the communities discussed later may have more importance for biodiversity than those discussed earlier.
Key Characteristics
- woodlands cover c.24% of the LCA, one of the highest percentages for all LCAs and far in excess of that for Northern Ireland as a whole (c.5.6%)
- over nine-tenths of the woodland is coniferous forest that is dominated by Sitka spruce and is of low biodiversity
- outside of the forests, woodland is scarce, but there are some notable small sites usually alongside streams and often of mixed upland ashwoods or birch; most are 'long-established' and possibly ancient - a type of woodland rare to Northern Ireland
- grassland covers about 50% of the LCA, a much lower percentage than for Northern Ireland as a whole (c.71%)
- only about half of the grassland is improved pasture, the remainder is wet upland acid grassland of generally low biodiversity
- contains one of the largest areas of intact upland blanket bog in Northern Ireland and is of international significance because of its size, intact nature and its micro-topographical features
- good examples of oligotrophic upland lakes
Woodlands
Woodlands cover c.24% of the LCA, one of the highest percentages for all LCAs and far in excess of that for Northern Ireland as a whole (c.5.6%). Over nine-tenths of the woodland is coniferous forest that is dominated by Sitka spruce; lodgepole pine and Norway spruce are the other main species although there are some compartments of larch. This forestry has taken place on the marginal hill lands where the soils are very poorly drained (surface water gleys and surface water humic gleys) and has extended, particularly in the west, onto the blanket peat of the plateau surface. Generally, these forests are of low biodiversity, but in a few locations the biodiversity is enhanced by the incorporation of older woodland or of scrub. For example, at Coolnasillagh FNR a series of small marginal fields are reverting to scrub and woodland. Old hedgerow trees have seeded adjoining land resulting in colonisation by ash, alder, holly and hazel. A rich ground flora, particularly of spring flowering plants, also has developed. There is a wide range of song birds and the more common butterflies. Altadavan FNR consists of old woodland growing on a small rocky hill enclosed by a stone wall. Oak predominates with birch, hazel, rowan, and holly also present. Some natural regeneration is taking place.
Outside of the forests, woodland is scarce, but there are some notable small sites usually alongside streams. One of the largest examples is the Hollybrook River where the woodland is dominated by ash, birch, alder and willow (upland mixed ashwoods). Hazel and hawthorn are common in the understorey and the herb layer has good diversity, including bluebell and wood anemone. Lichens and mosses are abundant. Other small mixed upland ashwoods include those along the stream at Corlaghaloon, along streams to the south of Strananerriagh and to the south of Nutfield. Along the Fury River, hazel dominated woodland with ash, alder and willow dominates the steep sides and there is a diverse herb layer with abundant ferns, mosses and lichens. Most of these woodland patches were present on the 1834 OS 6" maps and they are therefore at least 'long established' and given their position, are possibly 'ancient'. Such woodlands are rare, not only in this LCA, but in Northern Ireland.
There are few estate woodlands in the LCA; small remnants are found at Nutfield and Armagh Manor. Wet woodland is also limited in occurrence; the most extensive example is to the north of Lissagorry. This is alder and willow woodland, but there are drier parts with ash. Although the herb layer lacks diversity, there are abundant mosses and lichens. Elsewhere, wet woodland is found as a variation within other woodlands, as in the ash woodlands alongside streams.
Colonizing scrub and woodland similar to that at Coolnasillagh FNR, occurs intermittently around the edge of the forests where farms and fields have been abandoned.
Grassland and Arable
Grassland covers about 50% of the LCA, a much lower percentage than for Northern Ireland as a whole (c.71%) and arising from the upland character and the amount of forest; improved pastures are about half of the grassland area. Improved pastures have generally low biodiversity as a result of relatively intensive management. Some of the pastures are sown grasslands dominated by ryegrass and few other species - low biodiversity is in-built. Other grasslands have been converted to improved pastures through management. High levels of grazing or repeated cutting for silage, high inputs of fertilizers and slurry, and selective herbicides serve to reduce diversity of both flora and fauna. Arable land is insignificant in this LCA.
Biodiversity in areas of improved pastures and arable is often concentrated in hedgerows. Indeed, they may be the most significant wildlife habitat over much of lowland Northern Ireland, especially where there are few semi-natural habitats. Hedgerows are a refuge for many woodland and farmland plants and animals. In this LCA hedges are generally not well managed and have become very overgrown and gappy with consequent loss of plant species diversity.
Improved grassland is limited to lowland on the northern, western and southern edges of the LCA, the remaining grassland constitutes unmanaged and acid grassland of generally low biodiversity on the gleyed and peaty soils of the upland slopes. Many of these grasslands, especially those formerly enclosed, are dominated by rushes and are being invaded by willow and gorse from the former hedges and banks (see above). Some reclamation and field amalgamation has occurred within the matrix of the marginal, rush-infested fields. With increasing altitude and wetter, more organic soils, coarse grasses such as bent, purple moor grass and mat grass become dominant.
Although of low plant species diversity, these marginal wet grasslands are important habitats, along with adjacent bog, for waders including curlew.
Farmland is a relatively small proportion of the LCA, but together with other inter-mixed habitats - hedges, small woods, damp meadows - it supports several of the bird Priority Species including, bullfinch, reed bunting, song thrush, skylark and curlew.
Heaths and Bogs
Blanket bog is confined in Europe to the northwest margins of the continent, so that Northern Ireland contains not only a large proportion of the UK's and of Ireland's total area of blanket bog, but also is of major importance at a European scale. Blanket bog, and particularly intact blanket bog, in any LCA is therefore of national and international significance. It is home to plant species adapted to the acidic, low nutrient conditions - including common heather, cross-leaved heath, cotton sedges, bog asphodel, deer sedge, bog mosses (Sphagnum species) and sundews. It is also important for over-wintering birds and for breeding birds, including waders. Blanket peat is also important as a store for carbon and as a repository of information on past environments.
This LCA includes Slieve Beagh ASSI (also Slieve Beagh SAC and Slieve Beagh Ramsar site), a particularly good example of upland blanket bog; it is the third largest intact expanse in Northern Ireland. The peatland complex includes a number of oligotrophic water bodies as well as raised and soligenous bogs, all within the enveloping blanket bog. 
The peatland exhibits notable structural features that include occasional hummock and lawn complexes, extensive pool complexes, as well as soakaways and flushes. Slieve Beagh also has a concentration of past and recent bog-bursts only equalled by north Antrim. The general vegetation is typical of upland blanket bog - common heather, deer sedge, hare's tail cotton sedge, and a diversity of bog mosses (Sphagnum species) depending on the height of the water-table. The blanket peat supports breeding red grouse and frequent golden plover and hen harrier, although the encroachment of forests may limit the populations of predator species.
West of Slieve Beagh blanket bog is less extensive, almost all has been cut-over in the past and much has been lost to conifer planting. Only isolated small areas of intact bog remain and some of these have been burnt.
Although there is a large extent of intact blanket bog at Slieve Beagh, it has not escaped modern mechanical extraction; that is widespread on the western side and on the northern edge. Most of the unplanted blanket bog west of Slieve Beagh has also had mechanized extraction.
Upland heathland is not widespread; although heather may dominate in parts, particularly where cut-over peat is relatively dry, it is still strictly blanket peatland because the depth of peat exceeds 0.5 metres.
Wetland and Lakes
Slieve Beagh has the largest concentration of medium- to large-sized dystrophic lakes (brownish in colour with much dissolved humic matter, a sparse bottom fauna and high oxygen consumption) in Northern Ireland. The smaller lakes and ponds are steep-sided with banks and bed formed by layers of deep peat. The larger lakes have shallow, shelving shores and hard, stony beds. Although the base-poor waters are low in plant nutrients and tend to have a characteristically impoverished flora and fauna, some important communities are present. The most common type of lake is characterised by the aquatic mosses Sphagnum cuspidatum, Sphagnum denticulatum, Drepanocladus species and the liverwort Jungermannia species. The floating and marginal vegetation tends to be sparse and restricted, and consists of a scattered swamp and acid poor-fen fringe. The upland lakes support a species-poor but notable upland insect fauna. The characteristic upland water beetle Agabus arcticus and the water bug Callicorixa wollastoni are common in the lakes and pools and the concentration of records of both species is the greatest recorded in Northern Ireland. Acidophile species and those typical of oligotrophic waters are also common, reflecting the prevailing conditions including Hydroporus gyllenhali, Hydroporus obscurus and Sigara scotti. The most notable species are found in the highest lake, Lough Sallagh, where the rare upland beetle Potamonectes griseostriatus and corixid Glaenocorisa propinqua are found. The natural acid flushes and the shallow pools associated with the many bog-bursts support a different suite of species including the local water beetles Agabus guttatus, Stictonectes lepidus and the corixid Sigara nigrolineata.
To the west of Slieve Beagh, most of the many lakes scattered over the lower plateau surface have been classed as mesotrophic lakes, that is, characterised by having a middle level of nutrients between nutrient poor (oligotrophic) and nutrient rich (eutrophic). Although mesotrophic lakes have potentially a high macrophyte diversity, most of the lakes in this part of the LCA are classed as of low priority for conservation and biological interest. Some do, however, have small areas of fen and reedbeds around their margins and Lough Corry has a narrow fringe of wet woodland with birch and purple moor grass and planted alder. The fen at Lough Corry has a narrow fringe of pure bottle sedge backed by a tall herb fen including with bottle sedge, marsh cinquefoil, horsetail and bog pondweed. This merges into poor acid fen with a dense cover of soft rush, sharp-flowered rush, creeping bent and purple moor grass. Lough Napeasta is an example of eutrophic standing waters.
The Colebrook River has river water crowfoot and the white-clawed crayfish is found in the Colebrooke River, the Cooneen Water, Fury River, Hollybrook River, and several of the loughs in the western half of the LCA.
Key Issues
General actions for UK and NI Priority Habitats and Priority Species are detailed in the Habitat Action Plans and Species Action Plans.
WOODLANDS
Issue: low cover of native broadleaved woodland, but important stream-side sites
Actions:
- further study of the history and ecology of small broadleaved woodlands possibly ancient and long-established, as a key to future management
- encourage protection of areas of invading scrub/woodland in the upland margins so as to allow them to develop into broadleaved woodland
- control grazing in existing broadleaved woodlands
- discourage further extension of conifer forests, especially onto peat even if cut-over
GRASSLAND AND ARABLE
Issue: poor biodiversity of farmland
Actions:
- maintain and improve field boundaries especially hedgerows . This may be achieved through adoption of correct cutting cycles; hedge laying and replanting where necessary; leaving saplings uncut to develop into hedgerow trees; avoidance of spraying with fertilizers, slurry, herbicides; provision of wildlife strips and conservation headlands around fields; and limitation of field amalgamation.
- encourage (through participation in Environmental Schemes) adoption of less intensive management of pastures to allow reversion to more species-rich grassland and protect unsown areas of species-rich grassland
- encourage further ecological survey of less-managed and marginal grasslands
- discourage further reclamation and field amalgamation
HEATH AND BOGS
Issue: blanket bog of national and international importance, one of the largest areas of
intact blanket bog in Northern Ireland
Actions:
- maintain the integrity of existing bogs by for example, preventing new drainage, new forestry and new peat cutting
- consider restoration of recently cut areas
WETLANDS
Issue: excellent examples of upland lake types and rivers with Priority Species
Actions:
- protect water quality of lakes and rivers through nutrient management and by reducing suspended sediments, thus
- promote and encourage existing good farming and forestry practices so that streams are not polluted by nutrient rich run-off from agricultural/forest land or seepage from silage pits
- monitor streams in relation to expansion of rural housing and associated septic tanks/sewage treatment plants
- monitor input of sediment from peat cutting and forestry activities
- monitor streams for acidification arising from forest activities
