09.30 – 13.30, Tuesday 15th July 2025 (via Microsoft Teams)
Meeting chair: Peter Crow (PC), Forest Research, Alice Holt
Microsoft Teams Organiser: Lucy Turner (LT), Forest Research, Alice Holt
Decisions and actions – for information only
Note – Change of meeting chair
Due to circumstance beyond his control, David Slawson was unable to attend the meeting at the last minute. Peter Crow chaired the meeting in David’s absence.
Meeting Location
This meeting was due to be a hybrid meeting, with some people attending face-to-face and kindly hosted by the University of Coventry. Unfortunately, not enough people were able to attend in person to make it viable and the meeting was therefore switched to online only. There was a discussion around the benefits of face-to-face meetings and the networking opportunities that they bring, but also an acknowledgement that the travel time and expense of travel and overnight accommodation can make it difficult to justify. The summer is also when many tree and plant health colleagues are busy with survey work and many people take holidays. The next meeting is currently due to be online. The 27th of January was proposed as the date for the next meeting. This will be an online meeting unless a number of the network members are able to commit to a face-to-face meeting and a host venue can be found. The next meeting will be online unless the network is informed otherwise.
THCSN Business
Actions/matters arising from the February 2025 meeting
PC noted that Action 1 of publicising the THCS Learning Pathway remained ongoing as Defra’s Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) Citizen Science Resource Library is still under construction.
Action 2 was for PC to explore possible increased collaboration with Action Oak (AO). PC has been in touch with AO colleagues and a joint communication campaign was planned for National Plant Health Week. Unfortunately, the news that AO wanted to share was not ready for May and a further collaborative item may be possible later in the year, perhaps as part of National Tree Week.
Action 3 was for DS to seek THCSN news items from members on a monthly basis for inclusion on the THSCN web pages. LT noted that DS was sending through regular news items for posting on the website. PC reminded attendees of this opportunity and encouraged the sharing of news with DS. PC said that there was some very interesting news that DS had been successful in tracking down, encouraged others to take a look and that he would share a link to the news page in the next Observatree external eNewsletter to help promote it.
Tom Jenkins reported that the THCSN web activity is still “slow”. ‘Over the past month, there have been 22 visitors over 27 sessions and 35 views. So the few visitors we have do linger for a short while. The number of visitors, sessions and views are up approximately 100% over the previous month’.
Could attendees please continue to promote the site.
Priority actions update
Enhance the tree health surveillance network
PC described the Observatree project’s network and highlighted some recent communications activities across the forestry and NGO sectors and within both Scotland and England. Observatree continues to work with colleagues within the Woodland Trust, National Trust and The Tree Council to broaden the reach of tree health and citizen science reporting.
Progress with UK Garden Sentinel Network
Both PC and Mercy Morris confirmed that following a launch of the UKGSN in 2024, uptake had been disappointingly low, but acknowledged that such new initiatives can take time to become established. There are plans to work with the Yorkshire Arboretum and the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh to run some further pilot work before a potential promotion again next year.
Data
Defra iNaturalist Project
DS was due to introduce this topic and seek ideas of pests or diseases for a Pilot (perhaps former quarantine p&ds) and encourage a GB approach. This can be discussed further with the interested parties and an update brought to the next meeting.
Observatree and Treezilla
PC has begun looking at a few different CS data that included tree health metrics (including TreeAlert, Treezilla, iTree-eco, ISPN Plant Health Checker) and found that there is often little overlap in what tree health data are captured. PC is in discussions with colleagues from FR’s Urban Forestry Group who led on the development of an individual tree data standard on the potential to revisit and perhaps update it.
As part of NCEA work, PC will be working with Michael Pocock and colleagues from the UKCEH to explore existing tree related CS data (especially where there is tree health-related information), looking for opportunities and challenges in joining and sharing what already exist and recommending some next steps.
From a purely Observatree perspective, the volunteers are again supporting OPM surveillance for the Woodland Trust and potentially also helping them in looking for healthy ash trees in Scotland.
Research
Tree/Citizen Science Research at Coventry University
Garden Organic members’ experiments through the years
Francis Ryans gave an overview of the history of citizen science at the Henry Doubleday Research Association (established in 1958) and how member of the association conducted and reported on their own research. One of the themes for ‘members’ experiments’ in 1964 included Pest control without poisons.
An eBook reviewing 60 years of Members’ experiments is available
OneSTOP and DAISY projects
Helen Bayliss gave an overview of the OneSTOP and DIASY projects.
OneSTOP – OneBiosecurity System and Technology for People, Places and Pathways, an EU funded project based on the Coventry and Warwickshire Living Lab. Citizen scientists within those areas monitor Sentinel gardens and report findings using Plantalert and iNaturalist.
DAISY – DigitAl technological and Social Innovation mixes enabling transformative change for biodiversity and equity. This is part of a wider European project, with other activities in Germany, the Netherlands and Hungary. The UK case study is using iNaturalist & the City Nature Challenge (Coventry/ Warwickshire). This will explore and amplify the role of digital apps as educational tools for enhancing biodiversity knowledge and as digital citizen science tools for aiding eradication of invasive alien species.
Blooms for Bees and Living Labs – Judith Conroy
A citizen science project to promote and improve gardening for bumblebees. Focusing on garden habitats, providing tools to identify the seven most common types of bumblebee (using the Blooms for bees app). Workshops held, plant trials and social media campaigns. In 2017, there were 502 participants, 2218 surveys and 3011 bumblebees identified. Methods and approach believed to be successful, but how to scale-up and establish a longer-running monitoring programme.
Coventry Agroecological Living Lab
Bringing together growers in Coventry to explore which crops are currently grown, look ahead to future needs and find solutions together. Coventry Agroecological Living Lab is where knowledge sharing will take place and where participants can engage in trials to grow a more diverse range of crops to cope better with climate change.
UrTrees: Making 3D models of trees from smartphone video – Franck Hétroy-Wheeler
Franck gave a presentation of some software and a project that calls on citizens to help collect measurements and increase our knowledge of the key features of urban trees. With the UrTrees mobile application, only a short video around the tree is needed to measure three essential features: tree height, trunk diameter at breast height (1.3m above ground) and crown volume.
a three-dimensional point cloud of the digitized tree is first derived from the video. Geometric models of the trunk and crown are then fitted to the point cloud to estimate key measurements (see video). All measurements are stored in a database providing data for urban tree studies (see contributions). To improve the user experience, a scoring system, daily quests, and an interactive visualization of the point cloud are included in the app. Volunteers are welcome to download the app and upload images of a tree. The app is currently only available to Android users.
Treezilla ‘Mapping social and cultural values of urban trees with citizen science’
Phil and Janice gave an update on the new cultural elements and the value framework that are now captured within Treezilla. This has been piloted in Milton Keynes, York and Cardiff.
RHS
Jassy provided an update on CS data submitted by RHS members. Box tree moth now appears to be very widespread. But there has recently been an increase in reports of honey fungus on privet and more than 8000 reports of aphids on buddleia. Work is underway to determine whether or not this is a new aphid, or a previous one that has developed a liking for buddleia. There has also been a number of reports on tilia leaf blotch in the past couple of years. The RHs now has a new reporting platform that has improved capacity for images to be uploaded.
Action PC and LT to catch-up with Jassy over sweet chestnut data submitted as part of the check a sweet chestnut campaign.
RBG Edinburgh
Update – Matt was unable to join the meeting
Action:
Observatree/TreeAlert update
At the start of the year, more than 100 potential volunteers were interviewed by colleagues at the WT and on the back of that, 77 were invited to join the network to fill vacant spaces. As a reminder, we have a maximum capacity of 200 volunteers located across Britain.
In the spring, these new volunteers received induction webinars on Observatree, TreeAlert and volunteer management systems. And in recent weeks, many have been receiving face-to-face sessions on biosecurity and tree health surveillance. This new cohort includes some highly motivated and engaged individuals and many of them are already submitting tree health reports.
Discussions ongoing with partners in an attempt to secure funding for the next stage of Observatree. The intention is to have agreements in place to allow a seamless transition beyond the current funded project that gives confidence to project volunteers and staff. A number of different scenarios need to be considered at this stage, depending on what funding commitment can be found. If we are able to continue with the project, we would like to continue working with others to increase tree health CS surveillance capacity by engaging with other volunteers at different levels on the Learning Pathway and the THCS pyramid (more people, lower level of expertise / smaller focus).
Beyond Par: Golf Biodiversity project – Richard Maxwell
Tracking ecosystem services and species resilience (to climate change) for street trees in London
Beyond Par is a tool that is intended to help golf courses identify their unused land and to work with them to increase the biodiversity of those spaces. The tool calculates ecosystem services based upon models developed mostly by Tremap. For some tree species, the models used within iTree are used. Score cards are created for all of the trees on a site. This is being piloted at a few sites in London, Scotland and Ireland. This work is based upon a suggestion made by David Slawson.
Tremap is also collaborating with Myerscough collage and the Greater London Authority to help look at the climate resilience for tree species in London.
Tour d’table for any other news, events, funding opportunities, publications from partner and projects etc.
APPENDIX 1 Attendees
| Francis | Rayns | Coventry University Staff |
| Charles | Lane | Fera |
| Samantha | Green | Coventry University Staff |
| Helen | Bayliss | Coventry University Staff |
| Judith | Conroy | Coventry University Staff |
| Janice | Ansine | Open University |
| Kate | Lewthwaite | Woodland Trust |
| Liz | Trenchard | Coventry University Staff |
| Franck | Hétroy-Wheeler | Open University (Invited Professor) |
| Lucy | Turner | Forest Research |
| Mercy | Morris | PlantNetwork |
| Ginette | Alexander | Yorkshire Arboterum |
| Peter | Crow | Observatree, Forest Research |
| Ruth | Chitty | RHD |
| Jassy | Drakulic | RHS |
| Tom | Jenkins | Forest Research Wales |
| Phillip | Wheeler | Open University |
| Richard | Maxwell | Tremap |
Apologies
| Andrew | Salisbury | Observatree volunteer |
| Andy | Moffat | AJ Moffat & Associates |
| Duncan | Allen | Forest Research |
| Jake | Morris | Defra |
| Lucy | Carson-Taylor | APHA |
| Nicola | Cummings | Plant Health Division Northern Ireland |
| Vicky | Bolton | Observatree & Woodland Trust |
| Michael | Pocock | UKCEH |
| Jane | Barbrook | APHA |