Winners and losers in a long-term study of vegetation change at Moor House NNR: Effects of sheep-grazing and its removal on British upland vegetation

Moreover, during the period that Moor House has been protected as a nature reserve some key plant species groups have declined in spite of reductions in grazing pressure. To reverse this trend requires some form of interventionist management. In order to increase the diversity of vascular plants some form of disturbance will probably be needed, but for bryophytes and lichens this remains a research question. If the results from these small-scale experiments are replicated at the landscape scale a reduction of sheep grazing pressure, for example in rewilding schemes, will have little effect on species composition over a 28-44 year period.