Best of Natural History Radio Folgen

In this week's programme we have a field report from England with Simon Potts, Professor of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services at Reading University. Simon Potts's research looks specifically at how effective bees and other pollinators are and their abundance in agricultural landscapes - a crucial link in food security. Monty Don explores some of the issues with Vandana Shiva in Delhi, a board member of the International Forum on Globalisation and an author of over 20 books about biodiversity, food and economies.

This week's Living World sees presenter Chris Sperring heading to Hampshire where with native lime tree specialist Hugh Milner they embark on a journey into the remarkable life of the UK's native lime trees. Most people's association with lime is a sticky mess on car windscreens from street planted non-native common lime. This is a hybrid of the 2 native species of lime tree in Britain, the small leaved lime and the large leaved lime. The bark, or more importantly the sap from the bark is also a great delicacy for great spotted woodpeckers, who it is now believed, after drilling their holes, wait until insects become trapped in the sap to take back to their young in the nest. More surprisingly lime trees can walk across a landscape, as they have the ability to regenerate from fallen timber or if branches make contact with the ground. Producer: Andrew Dawes

This week on Living World, presenter Trai Anfield travels to mid Scotland for an encounter with one of Britain's rarest mammals, the pine marten. Here in a remote landscape she meets up with Martyn Jamieson from the Field Studies Council for a safari with a difference, can they find a female with young, high in the tree tops? Producer: Andrew Dawes