Oak trees are iconic in Britain and important to our natural world and economy. Unfortunately, they are under threat from an emerging disease Acute Oak Decline (AOD). Affected trees have weeping stem patches caused by bacteria rotting inner tissues that carry food and water vital for tree life, and larval feeding galleries the oak jewel beetle (Agrilus biguttatus). Disease disrupts the flow of food and water in the tree often leading to its death. Solutions to manage and protect trees are vital to ensure the future of British oak. The role the beetle plays in AOD remains unanswered, but it is thought to be involved in disease process and transmission. If so, at what stage of its lifecycle? How does the beetle find suitable trees to feed and lay eggs on? Do the rot-causing bacteria attract the beetles? We will test these questions using controlled experiments. Trees produce various odours, and plant-feeding beetles such as A. biguttatus use their sense of smell to find suitable trees and mates for feeding and reproduction. By capturing gases given off by the tree, presenting them to beetles and monitoring their response we can find out which ones attract beetles. This interaction can be exploited to protect trees by using attractive odours to pull beetles into traps. Agrilus species can only colonise weakened trees and previous research shows that specific environmental stresses make oak more susceptible to AOD. Main stresses are drought and imbalanced soil nutrition, specifically nitrogen and phosphorous deficiencies. These effects on tree metabolism and function as well as on natural soil and tree microflora will be tested under controlled conditions. This will provide important information about possible microbial additives that could accompany soil nutrition amendments to hasten tree recovery. Until these questions are answered, control of the beetle cannot be implemented and soil amendments and suitable management practices to make trees more robust to attack cannot be introduced.Research will provide a better understanding of who has an interest and stake in oak health. The values, attitudes and actions of people, professionals and policy makers will be examined to help understand reactions and responses to control of the disease and how to work together to develop and implement appropriate management and control. We will collaborate with stakeholders and scientists, build on existing experience, identify values, attitudes and actions and explore knowledge and awareness associated with oaks in urban and rural environments that will be used to promote and facilitate engagement in collective action to protect oak trees.Finally, we will address the question of whether the bacteria present in AOD bleeds on oak are also found in disease symptoms on other broadleaf trees, and if so, are there similarities to AOD that would help understand the infection and rotting processes in AOD. Furthermore, as bacterial tree diseases are generally under-regarded and there is a lack of information available concerning them, the risks to tree host species are unknown as are the implications for control of bacterial spread. Records from Forest Research's Tree Health Diagnostic and Advisory Service (THDAS) show that in the past 5 years over 550 cases of stem bleeding have been reported, 40% of these were on oak but approximately 10% had undiagnosed disease cause. Through laboratory microbial culturing processes from a range of broadleaved trees with stem bleeding symptoms we will isolate, identify and test bacteria for their disease-causing ability. Information about bacteria on these trees would be helpful to manage AOD and also to assess the risks of bacteria to other important native forest tree species that might be susceptible to AOD and other bacterial species. This interdisciplinary project will provide new evidence that can feed into a better understanding of appropriate and acceptable management practices for oak health and resilience.

It has been made clear by examples such as Ash Dieback, that our trees face a serious threat from new diseases and pests. As trees are everywhere and are well-loved parts of our landscape, an important part of our economy and an essential part of our biodiversity, their loss has serious consequences. However, dealing with each new threat as it comes along is difficult, expensive and potentially futile as threats can evolve so much faster than their tree hosts. Also, tree health is not just about a single pest or disease, but about growing trees in the right place, about keeping population sizes up, about ensuring seedlings get a chance to grow and about allowing forests to change as the environment changes. So, in order to find a sustainable long-term strategy for keeping our trees healthy, we need to consider the range of real and potential threats that trees face and try to deal with these together. At the same time, we need to ask what is possible for changing the way we grow trees: how do we use trees now, what do we want from our trees in the future, and how much change are we willing to accept? By finding a middle ground, that brings together the best biological knowledge with a clear understanding of the possible ways to adapt, we can give our trees the best possible chance of withstanding new threats. The most important part of finding a way to do this is bringing together many different groups of people, and different types of knowledge. A lot is known about many of our trees already, but usually this knowledge comes from unlinked, independent studies and rarely do results from one study tell us something about another, even for the same tree species. Much better coordination is needed. To show how this can be done, we aim to use the example of Scots pine, an important native tree species. For Scots pine, we know of several serious threats that are either here or are likely to reach the UK soon. The remaining native Scots pine forests are small and fragmented, but we know that they are adapted to their local environments: so pine trees from one part of the country grow differently than those from another. There are large plantations of Scots pine in many parts of the UK - there is ten times as much planted as remains in the native forests - and these are often at much higher densities than are found in nature, and often alongside plantations of pines from other parts of the world. There is also a strong cultural attachment to the species; in many places pinewoods are being replanted and it is often used as a garden or amenity tree. Our project aims to measure how variable and adaptable are the threats to Scots pine, to test how much variation there is in the tree species in resistance to these threats, and to find ways to get people involved in making healthier pine forests. By doing this we also aim to show how the same thing can be done for any other tree species, and to put in place the tools for getting it done. We will focus on three important threats to Scots pine - Dothistroma needle blight, the pinetree Lappet moth and pine pitch canker. We will bring together a group of scientists - specialists in ecology, tree genetics, forest pathology, plant biochemistry, fungal ecology and evolution and social science - who will work together on the same, carefully chosen pine trees. This work will tell us how much the UK Scots pine population varies and how much it can change from generation to generation; how populations of the threats grow and change; and what can be done to make the pine forests we have more resilient. We will bring in lessons from crop agriculture, where similar problems have been faced for generations, and adapt these for trees and forests, that have much longer lifespans. Finally, by talking to people who work with and use trees, and the general public, we will find ways to use this information to make things change on the ground.

We are losing forests at a rate of circa one football pitch every 3 seconds. Urgent and large scale financing is required to prevent further deforestation and forest degradation. Yet, securing sufficient and long-term investments in carbon-related forest assets is a challenge, partly because of the liability of reversals and because the risks associated with such investments are perceived as either high or unknown. Better information on risks of forest loss are needed. We therefore propose a knowledge exchange forest-specific risk-toolbox for adoption by the investment community. Five Demonstrator Case Studies will be used to illustrate how NERC science can be converted and used in meaningful ways by the financial sector interested in forest assets. The five case studies are structured along key investment themes reflecting current and forecasted demand for forest investments (Timber, Afforestation/ Reforestation, REDD+, Voluntary Carbon Market and Forest Bonds). We propose to leverage the ongoing NERC KE network 'Forest-Finance risk network: towards stable investment environments' (thereafter referred to as Network -NE/IO22183/1). Key deliverables to this ongoing work include a database of experts and tools for the assessment of risks of forest loss. Early findings highlight that while significant expertise and datasets in the UK are available, the financial community requires demonstration for their potential use (Davies & Patenaude, in press). We request NERC funding for a period of 12 months to support the following three activities: the development of the forest specific risk toolbox to be adopted by the forest investment community; the identification of missing risk assessment opportunities and tools; and the dissemination of the demonstrator case studies illustrating how NERC data and research can be converted into a form that can be readily used. The continuous support from our existing (as well as new) partners (including Willis RE Ltd., ForestRe Ltd., the Global Canopy Programme, Verified Carbon Standard Ltd, Enviromarkets Ltd. Ecometrica Ltd, Bosques Amazonicas Ltd., Acclimatise Ltd., The Edinburgh Centre on Climate Change, and the Forest Research) is a clear demonstration of the need for this KE activity. Combined, they will contribute more than £100,000 in-cash and in-kind to this KE initiative. Our Knowledge Translator will effectively develop the toolbox, bring together the case studies and proactively engage with the users.

The Tree Health and Plant Biosecurity Expert Taskforce has identified a number of insects that pose a threat to UK trees and recommended that the UK "Develop and implement procedures for preparedness and contingency planning to predict, monitor and control the spread of pests". They also identified detection and biological control as areas of tree health where there were considerable knowledge gaps. BIPESCO is an interdisciplinary project that will develop entomopathogenic fungi (EPF) and botanicals to control insect pests that pose a threat to UK trees. Botanicals with attractant or repellent properties will be used alone or with EPF in novel "lure and kill" and "stress and kill" pest control strategies. Attractants will be used to improve pest monitoring and mass trapping. BIPESCO is timely because new EU legislation encourages the use of natural products as environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional chemical pesticides, usage of which is being severely restricted (Directive 2009/128/EC). Demand for natural products is increasing, and will continue to increase. Thus, opportunity exists to develop these agents, and strategies that enhance their efficacy, to facilitate adoption in the market. BIPESCO's specific aims are: 1. Identify strains of EPF pathogenic to current and emergent pest species. 2. Identify botanicals that attract or repel target pests. 3. Optimise synergy of EPF and botanicals for use in "lure and kill" and "stress and kill" strategies, and increase knowledge of mechanisms involved. 4. Validate efficacy of candidate EPF and botanicals in demonstration trials 5. Conduct risk assessments of products and strategies 6. Utilise data to determine socioeconomic benefits of products and strategies. BIPESCO (Swansea University [SU; lead], Fera and Forest Research [FR]) have considerable experience in management of tree pests and development of new products and strategies to control them. SU has developed EPF and botanicals for pest control including the EPF Metarhizium anisopliae, which is effective in controlling pine weevil (PW) and black vine weevil. SU has identified several PW behaviour-modifying botanicals, and patented a PW attractant. SU will use its expertise to develop attractants and repellents for other pest species. Fera has experience working with emergent pest species such as oak processionary moth (a close relative of the pine processionary moth, PPM) and Asian longhorned beetle (ALB). Fera will evaluate EPF and botanicals provided by SU against PPM and ALB in state-of-the-art quarantine facilities. Together with SU, they will identify synergies between EPF and botanicals and elucidate how stressing compounds enhance EPF efficacy. FR has expertise in management and modelling of a range of forest pests and has developed systems that advise growers on when to use pesticides. Together with SU and Fera, FR will test selected products and strategies in forest systems. BIPESCO will also conduct risk assessments on products and strategies, and generate knowledge on their socio-economic benefits. BIPESCO has the support of seven industry partners (Sentomol, Lisk & Jones, UPM, Maelor Nurseries, Neem Biotech, Fargro and Greenerpol), representing the supply chain. The support (worth £328,591) includes resources (e.g. materials, trial sites, labour) and advice, giving added value to the project. BIPESCO's outputs (indicated in specific aims, above) will have considerable academic and commercial impact. They will benefit forestry, commercial nurseries, and local authorities (urban landscapes), and will lead to strong and on-going collaborations with pest control and related companies. The outputs will provide solutions to control of potential invasive pests such as ALB, in accord with the LWEC call. This project will provide products and strategies for a large and expanding pest control market currently worth $49 billion, but expected to reach $59 billion by 2016.

The future of treescapes belongs to children and young people. Yet there is a lack of interdisciplinary research that explores their engagement with treescapes over time. This project aims to re-imagine future treescapes with children and young people, working with local and national partners including Natural England, Forest Research and the Community Forests and Scottish stakeholders. We will identify opportunities and barriers to treescape expansion and pilot innovative child and youth-focused pathways to realising this goal. We will create curricula material which will be disseminated with the support of our project partners, Early Childhood Outdoors and the Chartered College of Teachers. The aim of this project is to integrate children and young people's knowledge, experiences, and hopes with scientific knowledge of how trees adapt to and mitigate climate change in order to co-produce new approaches to creating and caring for resilient treescapes that benefit the environment and society. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches and in collaboration with stakeholders, the team will produce a 'lexicon of experience' that captures the ecological identities of children and young people. An audit of existing activity in the field of activism and treescapes, with a particular focus on marginalised groups, will inform the project. In particular, the project will produce new material for use by practitioners, educators and policy makers that will inform future treescape planting and will be rolled out nationally, with the help of our project partners. Novel methods for assessing carbon storage in trees and soil will inform a 'tree-twinning' project to enable children and young people to recognise how they can relate to treescapes. Children and young people will draw on the scientific work together with their lived experience to balance their evolving carbon footprint with the changing treescapes they have partnered with. New treescapes will be planted with the help of Community Forests and local authorities. Learning will be enhanced by the scientific project on tree-twinning, embedded within the project, to advance knowledge about the relationship between climate science and urban trees. This research will be carried out with children and young people as co-researchers. The project will focus on hope as a vital ingredient of future planning and philosophically and practically create a set of actions to look to the future while addressing temporalities, including past archival work on trees. It will work with cohorts of young people across early years, primary, secondary and young people out of school, as well as families and communities, to think about and engage with treescapes, to plan as well as plant new treescapes and to engage in treescape thinking and curricula innovation. Working with Natural England as project partners, a toolkit will be developed to guide this work and a set of resources and outputs to be rolled out nationally that inspire and inform future generations of children and young people to become involved in treescapes, which will re-shape the disciplinary landscape of treescapes research and inform policy and practice. Community forest planners, policy-makers and practitioners will better understand how to engage children and young people in treescapes and how to work with their knowledges to inspire and inform future generations. Innovative approaches to arts and humanities, environmental science and social science will produce a new understanding of how combining disciplines can further treescape research with children and young people. The project will also advance methodological understandings of the relationship between children and young people and treescapes with a focus on co-production and attending to lived experience while conducting environmental scientific research. New knowledge in the fields of environmental and social science will create new disciplinary paradigms and concepts.