Meet Assistant Ecological Data Officer at NEYEDC, Rob Bailey!

Rob works at NEYEDC as an Assistant Ecological Data Officer. In this one-year trainee role he is currently involved in running data search requests, the revision of the Ancient Woodland Inventory and UAV (drone) surveying alongside other projects. Rob previously worked in arboriculture and other practical land-based roles. Having had a lifelong passion for the natural world and its protection, Rob returned to education as a mature student to study BSc (Hons) Environmental Geography at York St John University. It was during a work placement on his degree that Rob first met the staff of NEYEDC (and has been hard to get rid of since!). NEYEDC kindly agreed to assist Rob in his final year dissertation project which involved flying their Sensefly eBeeX Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) (Our Services for Professionals, Drone Surveys) over the headwaters of an upland catchment in Northumberland to assess erosion/deposition change over time. It was during this fieldwork visit that an interesting plant caught Rob’s attention, having seen it only once before while walking in the Peak District.

Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus) is a dioecious perennial plant which grows on base-poor peats. Globally cloudberry has a circumboreal distribution growing in both open and wooded habitats and is typically found in the UK in northern and upland areas (mostly between 600m-1160m elevation). It is in the Roseaceae family and has superficially similar characteristics to the familiar Bramble (Rubus fruticosus agg.) Like Bramble, Cloudberry produces white flowers which are thought to be pollinated by Diptera (flies) species (Brown and McNeil, 2009; Naess and Chagnon, 2011). The fruits, in the form of 6-18 large drupelets, are red at first and then ripen to orange, though plants in Britain produce less far fruit than in Scandinavia. Unlike the scrambling and climbing bramble, Cloudberry has a self-supporting growth form only reaching 5-20cm in height. The plant reproduces through both seed and spreading rhizomes.

*Figure 1: Cloudberry through the year. Left: August 2022, Northumberland. Middle: August 2016, Peak District. Right: October 2022, Northumberland. (Pictures: Robert Bailey)*

In Scandinavian countries, the fruits of Cloudberry are highly prized for their culinary usage and are high in vitamin C. These were also used in traditional medicine, alongside the leaves which are high in polyphenolic compounds. In Britain, cloudberries have been used in northern areas for making puddings and jams. Despite being northern and having a love for puddings and jam, Rob has always chosen to leave them due to how infrequently they fruit. The esteemed nature writer Richard Mabey, described in his book Food for Free (2007) how this scarcity interplayed with tradition and religion in north Wales:
“In the Berwyn mountains in north Wales, an unusual tradition commemorated this scarcity, and persisted up to the end of the nineteenth century. Shepherds from Llanrhaiadr believed that a quart of cloudberries was the wage that St Dogfan was due for his spiritual ministry, and anyone who could bring such a quantity to the parson on St Dogfan’s Day had his tithes (taxes) remitted for the year”.

*Figure 2: Cloudberry in flower. Credit: Rob Still / Chris Gibson (BSBI)*

As a plant of peat moorland and mountain bogs, the distribution of Cloudberry in the UK is restricted to areas with suitable habitat (Figure 3). North Yorkshire has ~26% of England’s blanket bog resource (Yorkshire Peat Partnership. 2023) and records for Cloudberry exist for the Yorkshire Dales, Forest of Bowland National Landscape area and the North York Moors. While there are a good number of records for The Yorkshire Dales and Forest of Bowland areas, records are sparse for the North York Moors. Nan Sykes, an authority on the plants of the North York Moors considered May Moss (also an important site for Bog Rosemary, Andromeda polifolia) to be the only site where it occurred (Sykes, 2020).

Globally, the conservation status of Cloudberry seems to be stable with the IUCN categorising the species as being of ‘Least Concern’ in its most recent assessment (Maiz-Tome, 2016). In the BSBI Plant Atlas 2020 (McCosh and Stroh, 2023), the authors noted that while the overall 10km distribution in Britain appears to have remained stable over time, some losses have occurred where peatland degradation has occurred. Degradation can occur through drainage, erosion, afforestation and moor burning and it is estimated that in Europe 25% of all peatlands are degraded (50% in the EU) while in the UK ~80% have been degraded by human activity leaving just 22% in near-natural, undrained condition (13% in England) (Evans et al., 2017; Tanneberger et al., 2021; UK Government 2021). The Yorkshire Peat Partnership (YPP) work to restore peatlands across the North York Moors National Park, Yorkshire Dales National Park, Nidderdale National Character Area and South Pennines. YPP Peat Project Intern Alex Smith was a contributor to The Natural History of Yorkshire in 100 Species with her article #60 Round-leaved Sundew & Sphagnum medium by Alex Smith.

*Figure 3: UK distribution map of Cloudberry (BSBI)*

Recording and monitoring

Biological records are key to helping understand the distribution and changing trends of Cloudberry populations over time. Records of Cloudberry, along with other botanical records, can be submitted to the BSBI County Recorder for your vice-county, or to us here at NEYEDC.

Further information and acknowledgements

NEYEDC would like to thank Rob for his time and expertise in helping to create this blog.

References:

Brown, A.O. and McNeil, J.N. (2009). ‘Pollination ecology of the high latitude, dioecious cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus; Rosaceae)’. American Journal of Botany, 96: 1096-1107. https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.0800102

Evans, C., Artz, R., Moxley, J., Smyth, M-A., Taylor, E., Archer, N., Burden, A., Williamson, J., Donnelly, D., Thomson, A., Buys, G., Malcolm, H., Wilson, D., Renou-Wilson, F., Potts J. (2017). Implementation of an emission inventory for UK peatlands. Report to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Bangor: Centre for Ecology and Hydrology,.88pp. Available at: https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat07/1904111135_UK_peatland_GHG_emissions.pdf (Accessed: 10th September 2024)

Faleva, A.V., Ul’yanovskii, N.V., Onuchina, A.A., Falev, D.I. and Kosyakov, D.S., (2023). ‘Comprehensive characterization of secondary metabolites in fruits and leaves of cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus L.)’. Metabolites, 13(5), p.598.

Garrard, I. and Streeter, D., (1998). The Wild Flowers of the British Isles. London, England: Macmillan.

Hamilton, C.W., Smithwick, E.A., Spellman, K.V., Baltensperger, A.P., Spellman, B.T. and Chi, G., (2024). ‘Predicting the suitable habitat distribution of berry plants under climate change’. Landscape Ecology, 39(2), p.18.

Mabey, R. (2007). Food for Free. London. England: HarperCollins Publishers. Pp. 114-115

Maiz-Tome, L. (2016). Rubus chamaemorus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T64323876A67730717. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T64323876A67730717.en. Accessed on 09 September 2024.

McCosh, D.J. and Stroh, P.A. (2023). ‘Rubus chamaemorus L.’ in P.A. Stroh, T. A. Humphrey, R.J. Burkmar, O.L. Pescott, D.B. Roy, & K.J. Walker (eds) BSBI Online Plant Atlas 2020. Available at: https://plantatlas2020.org/atlas/2cd4p9h.5kh [Accessed 14/05/2024]

Naess, S.K. and Chagnon, M., (2011). ‘Honeybees are useful as pollinators of the dioecious cloudberry, a high-value northern berry’. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B-Soil & Plant Science, 61(sup1), pp.1-7.

Rose, F., and O'Reilly, C. (2006). The Wild Flower key: how to identify wild flowers, trees and shrubs in Britain and Ireland. London, England: Warne.

Sykes, N (2020). Picture Guide to the Wild Flowers of North East Yorkshire. York, England: PLACE.

Tanneberger, F., Moen, A., Barthelmes, A., Lewis, E.; Miles, L., Sirin, A., Tegetmeyer, C., Joosten, H. (2021b). ‘Mires in Europe—Regional Diversity, Condition and Protection’. Diversity, 13, 381. https://doi.org/10.3390/d13080381

UK Government (2021). England Peat Action Plan. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1010786/england-peat-action-plan.pdf (Accessed: 10th September 2024).

Yorkshire Peat Partnership (2023). Yorkshire Peat Partnership Annual Report April 2022 – March 2023. Available at: https://www.yppartnership.org.uk/resources (Accessed: 9th September 2024)

Yorkshire Peat Partnership (2024). Yorkshire Peat Partnership: Rewet, replant, restore. Available at: https://www.yppartnership.org.uk/ (Accessed: 10th July 2024)

The Natural History of Yorkshire in 100 Species

#70 Cloudberry by Rob Bailey

Recording and monitoring

Further information and acknowledgements