Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

166 Chapter 7: Nature Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland Plant Atlas for Ireland In 2023, the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) published a new Plant Atlas for Ireland (Stroh et al. , 2023). Using data collected over 20 years (2000- 2020), the atlas highlighted a significant loss of Irish flora, with more than half of Irish native plant species (56%) having declined in range or abundance or both. According to the BSBI, many of the habitats that Irish wild plants depend on have been removed or altered by farming and forestry since the 1950s. Grassland plants have been affected the most. Re-seeding, over-fertilising, nitrogen deposition, herbicides, drainage and changes in grazing pressure have all contributed to the decline of species (Stroh et al. , 2023). Mirroring the freshwater 5 A perennial aquatic plant native to North America, Nuttall’s pondweed, Elodea nuttallii , grows submersed in lakes, rivers and other shallow water bodies. In Ireland it is considered an invasive alien species that is outcompeting and replacing our native aquatic flora, such as charophytes. www.eea.europa.eu/themes/biodiversity/state-of-nature-in-the-eu/article-12-national- summary-dashboards-archived faunal declines highlighted by Kelly-Quinn et al. (2020), the BSBI report also highlighted how many Irish lakes and wetlands have seen significant declines in both species and populations of native aquatic flora, with many lakes now dominated by invasive non-native aquatic plants, such as Nuttall’s pondweed, Elodea nuttallii 5 (Figure 7.8). Other important habitats such as peatlands have been planted with conifers or converted to agriculture, thus excluding the native peatland plants, such as sphagnum moss, heathers and sundew. There is also evidence that climate change may have affected Irish flora by helping some southern species to spread northwards, altering the natural range of species expected in Ireland. Non-native plants such as Himalayan balsam and rhododendron have become invasive. These are having a negative impact on native flora across the country (Stroh et al. , 2023). Figure 7.8  Increase in distribution of the invasive Nuttall’s pondweed, Elodea nuttallii , 1986-2019. Dots on the maps represent records of the pondweed (at the scale of 10 km × 10 km squares) in each period 1970-1986 1987-1999 2000-2019 Increase in distribution 1986-2019 Source: Map data available at plantatlas2020.org/atlas/2cd4p9h.xmq