In support of a PhD project titled: Mountain birch in Scotland: genetics and recovery. The project has been developed collaboratively between the University of Stirling, UK Centre for Ecology Hydrology (UKCEH), Forest Research, Corrour Estate, National Trust for Scotland (NTS) and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE).

This 3-year PhD project will address the following questions to inform management of birch in mountain woodland restoration:

• Are there morphological, neutral genetic and adaptive differences between high and low altitude populations of downy birch?
• What is the role of environmental and ecological drivers in determining the distribution of mountain birch species?

The project will focus on two of the three birch species in Britain, i.e. downy birch (Betula pubescens) and dwarf birch (Betula nana). Methods will involve field assessments, reciprocal transplant trials and genetic analyses:

• Morphological and genetic assessments of populations of downy birch and dwarf birch across a range of elevations. Morphological assessments will focus on features such as leaf size and shape, and catkin scale shape.
• Variation in a range of adaptive traits (e.g. height, phenology) in plants grown from high and low altitude seed collections of Betula pubescens will be assessed in a pot based common garden trial established at Forest Research.
• Fine scale local distribution of the two Betula species and introgressed hybrids will be determined alongside detailed assessments of climate, soil, slope, aspect, flora and fauna.