BAP Priority Habitat survey of 55 LWS in Durham
PTYXIS is contracted by South Tyneside Council to survey its Local Wildlife Sites, including a suite of pond surveys using the PSYM methodology and waxcap grassland survey.
We are working for Natural England's specialist grassland team to collate and analyse botanical data sets from upland hay meadows across England, to explore trends and generate hypotheses for further work.
In partnership with Durham Wildlfe Services, we delivered a major landscape-scale biodiversity management plan for the Magnesian Limestone area of County Durham. The project involved a team of 5 ecologists and a GIS specialist in opportunity mapping. We advised on wetland and grassland restoration and creation, and devised community interpretation and training projects.
PTYXIS is surveying over 3000 ha of diverse upland calcareous and acid grasslands, heathlands, blanket bog and other and mires.
This research project investigated the autecology of Sphagna species, particularly to evaluate their potential use as indicators of habitat management impacts. This extensive study was part of the North Pennines Peatscapes Project, and we secured funding in competition with several university research teams.
John and Clare O’Reilly have over 38 years of combined botanical experience. And we are still learning! We do not believe that you can be a "leading expert" in vegetation survey without having reached an equivalent profile for plant taxonomic skill - because accurate plant identification is fundamental to the validity of all survey work. We also believe that botanical surveyors should be trained vegetation scientists, able to understand and manipulate the methodolgies they use and apply and interpret statistical analyses: there is much more to it than doing quadrats!
John and Clare are both professionally qualified ecologists who have studied vegetation from Orkney to the Isles of Scilly and many places in between. We are also keen all-round amateur naturalists.
We have a strong track record of working with conservation ngos, local authorities and the voluntary natural history sector and are active members of the British Bryological Society, the British Lichen Society and the Botanical Society of the British Isles.
We work with carefully chosen associates when a survey team is required to deliver a project.
Clare O'Reilly BA MSc PGCE (FE&HE) MIfL MIEEM Solicitor (non-practicing) is a nationally recognised, professionally trained botanist, a BSBI national referee and co-author of the new edition of a leading British flora, the Wild Flower Key. She conducts all types of vegetation survey and assessment, including National Vegetation Classification (NVC) survey. One of her specialisms is aquatic macrophytes and the ecology of ponds/ephemeral water bodies, having completed her thesis on the conservation genetics, taxonomy and ecology of the stonewort genus Chara.
She has particular experience of fens, calcicolous and mesotrophic grasslands, and designing habitat restoration/re-creation schemes.
Previously an environmental lawyer with the leading City practice Allen & Overy, she brings a high level of commercial awareness, negotiation skills and pragmatism to her ecological work.
John O'Reilly BA(Ed) MSc CEnv MIEEM is a bryologist, botanist and ornithologist with particular experience of woodland, urban and upland habitats, especially blanket bog and other mires and upland hay meadows. He specialises in conservation management plans, NVC surveys and detailed botanical and bryophyte surveys, being particularly interested in types of vegetation not described in the NVC system. John is British Bryological Society (BBS) county recorder for Northumberland and Durham (v.c.c. 66, 67 & 68), a steering group member of the Bryophyte Ecology Group (BRECOG) and has contributed to the new BBS field guide.
He has worked as an agricultural advisor for RDS in Newcastle and subsequently was a lead ecologist on the design of the new Higher Level Environmental Stewardship scheme, editing the Farm Environment Plan (FEP) handbook and designing the FEP condition assessment methodology, which has become a leading survey methodology for BAP habitat condition assessment.
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