The PROBECO project aims to address the following issues fundamental to conservation:

• What are we conserving?
• How are different types of biodiversity related?
• What should we conserve?
  Genetic resources
  Components or Species or Functions?
• How to implement conservation/management measures

Scots Pine woodlands – why are they important?

• Occupy <1% of their former range in Scotland
• Are listed in the EU Habitats directive
• Scotland contains 100% of UK resourceScots pine has a broad geographic distribution, from the Mediterranean to high latitude Boreal systems.

When considering how species represent biodiversity, the Scottish Executive Environment Group (2003) suggested the following classes of species: endemic, stronghold, keystone, flagship, umbrella. They stated:

‘Some species clearly fall into more than one of these categories. A classic example of a single species to represent Scotland is perhaps the Scots pine; a flagship emblem of the Scottish highlands whose natural populations have been reduced drastically in extent, as well as being a key dominant of native pinewoods and an umbrella species for a wide range of bryophytes, fungi, vascular plants and animals, all of which depend on the pinewood for their survival’

Scottish Executive Environment Group (2003) Towards a strategy for Scotland’s biodiversity: Scotland’s Biodiversity Resource & Trends