Biodiversity on our doorstep, exploring the Botanic Garden
By Katie
March 2025
As expected, the St Andrews Botanic Garden has a great diversity of tree and plant species; but less well known is the wide range of animals that live there too. Being home to hedgehogs, bats, badgers and foxes is not surprising. But amongst them also live pine marten, deer, beavers, otters and most shocking of all (at least to me) terrapins! In the peace of the night the garden comes alive with animals. Lucky enough to go on an evening tour, I spotted deer tracks, a badger sett and owl pellets but was eluded by the secretive animals. This blog will focus on some of the amazing species found in the garden (there are way too many to mention all of them!) and their projects to conserve this biodiversity.
Garden biodiversity:
Biodiversity is essential for healthy ecosystems where species all play unique roles and is the focus of this Biodiversity Literacy Vertically Integrated Project (VIP). Research focused modules, VIPs bring together students across years and disciplines on a range of projects. The aim of this VIP is to engage the wider community with biodiversity. As part of monitoring biodiversity across the University estate, we have started to carry out regular moth trapping in the Botanic Garden.
​
Watching a friend get giddy with excitement seeing a grey squirrel is unexpected because seeing grey squirrels is an everyday occurrence for me. Having grown up in the UK, I have always loved British wildlife but seeing it through the eyes of international friends who haven’t experienced it before makes me appreciate it even more. It is important to make a conscious effort not to take our local wildlife for granted. We often appreciate rare wildlife more than common species, sadly often the now rare wildlife used to be commonplace. For example, red squirrels have declined due to the introduction of American grey squirrels. This is because grey squirrels spread a disease (squirrelpox) they are immune to, but which can kill red squirrels. Unusually, the garden has red and grey squirrel populations side by side, normally grey squirrels outcompete red for food and habitat. To see the red squirrels yourself, the best time to visit the garden is early morning when they are most active.
A red squirrel in the Botanic Garden through my binoculars.
Recently, in the VIP we have been using camera traps to track elusive wildlife across St Andrews. A challenge has been to get footage of otters (see photo below) which have been sighted at dawn and dusk along the Kinnessburn and in the Botanic Garden. This recent discovery of otters is exciting as this indicates clean freshwater.
A camera trap image of an otter in the Kinnessburn taken by VIP students.
I initially thought it was a joke when our guide mentioned terrapins in the Garden’s pond. But subsequent research has shown that whilst not native to the UK (at least for the last 8,000 years), terrapins (small turtles) have dispersed into our watercourses and ponds, due to former pets being illegally released. This includes the St Andrews and Glasgow Botanic Gardens. Sadly, as exotherms (cold blooded) the UK winter is difficult for them to survive, so their quality of life is compromised. Even in summer, it can be too cold for them to forage, and the lack of vitamin D weakens their shells. Unfortunately, their presence alters ecological balances through preying on bird eggs and depleting oxygenating plants. Therefore, illegal animal releases can have negative consequences on the animal’s welfare as well as the ecosystem as a whole.
Projects:
There are many initiatives to conserve this garden’s wonderful biodiversity which are similar to our own VIP projects, such as bat and bird box monitoring. Analogous to the North Haugh campus, the garden is promoting biodiversity through embracing meadows instead of traditional lawns, creating habitat for pollinators. Through the VIP, we are aiming to increase the areas on university land with wildlife friendly land management such as meadows and log piles.
Breaking botanic garden stereotypes, this garden has an ecosystem approach to planting instead of focusing on traditional plant collections for categorising plants. As well as benefiting wildlife with distinct habitats, this increases the research opportunities on ecology, evolution and succession (the ecological process where the species composition changes over time to become more complex). Plus, the plants are more resilient to the local climate instead of trying to grow plants from all over the world which aren’t suited to the conditions.
Specifically aimed at Fife’s ecosystems, the garden’s sand dune and slack (the dips in-between dunes which support different plants) area enables research on sand dune dynamics and the resilience of local plants to environmental change. Sand dunes are essential habitat for many organisms such as newts, bees, sand lizards, orchids and nightjars. Plus, sand dunes are a sustainable sea defence (instead of grey infrastructure like sea walls) reducing coastal flooding, wind intensity inland and erosion. Locally, there is a lot of research on the blue carbon (carbon captured by marine ecosystems) of saltmarshes at the Eden Estuary.
An innovative section of the garden I helped plant is the new Generator Garden. It is so-called due to its ability to generate both conversations around climate change and generate life from rubble. On the site of their former greenhouses, it is a brownfield site, showing the potential of many “waste” areas of land. Actually, the old greenhouse foundations were reused as substrate for the plants reducing waste. See below my pictures of the transformation.
I encourage you to visit the garden to see for yourself the wonderful biodiversity and hope for a glimpse of some of these incredible animals. Though if the animals are hiding there are many plants which can’t! It always shocks me how many of my friends have never visited, it is important to take a break from studying and enjoy the biodiversity St Andrews has to offer. If you would like to be involved with protecting our local wildlife, there are many local and national initiatives.
See More: ​https://biodiversity.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/other-biodiversity-relevant-sites/
​