Vikki Bengtsson

Vikki Bengtsson is an ecologist and has worked professionally with nature conservation since 1992 both in Sweden and England. Throughout her career she has worked with issues around the practical management and restoration of ancient and other veteran trees, wood pastures and veteranisation. She was project manager for the EU projects VETree and VETcert. She started her part-time industrial PhD focusing on veteranisation in 2025. 

Ancient trees, the habitats, and species they support are in decline globally. In addition, many remaining old tree sites have few ancient trees and a large age gap between the existing old trees and their successors. I am interested in finding out whether veteranisation could be a nature conservation tool to help bridge these age gaps and thus help with the restoration of our most precious and rare habitats.

My PhD project is entitled Veteranisation - evaluating the conservation potential of artificially created microhabitats in young trees. 

Veteranisation is the practice of creating microhabitats in living young trees using tools, which may in turn support the development of valuable habitats, usually only found on older trees, more quickly. This management strategy may be a promising method to diversify available habitats for species confined to specific niches, i.e. species of conservation interest, through the creation of cavities, dysfunctional sapwood or exposed heartwood, but also to bridge age gaps between generations of oak trees. 

In 2011/2012 an international trial (16 sites in Sweden, 1 in Norway and 3 in England) was set up to try and evaluate five different veteranisation techniques on oak and compare these with control trees (i.e. trees not veteranised). In this doctorate, Vikki will  will investigate whether it is possible to artificially create microhabitats in young trees that attract and support species associated with natural tree microhabitats in old trees using this large international trial on oak. 

Vikki runs a lot of vocational training courses for arborists, landscape architects, ecologists and nature conservation site managers in the care and management of veteran trees, as well as veteranisation. 

Bengtsson, V., & Wheater, P. (2021). The effects of veteranisation of Quercus robur after eight years (Report No. 13). Länsstyrelsen Östergötland. 

Bengtsson, V., Wheater, C. P., Read, H., & Harris, R. (2021). Responses of oak pollards to pruning. Arboricultural Journal, 43(3), 156-170. 

Bengtsson, V., Stenström, A., Wheater, C. P., & Sandberg, K. (2021). The impact of ash dieback on veteran trees in southwestern Sweden. Baltic Forestry, 27(1). 

Read, H., Bengtsson, V., Castro, A., Harris, R., & Wheater, C. P. (2021). Restoration of lapsed beech pollards in the Basque region of Spain: comparison of different cutting techniques. Arboricultural Journal, 43(3), 140-155. 

Read, H. J., & Bengtsson, V. (2021). Is the population of ancient trees at Burnham Beeches sustainable?. Fritillary, 9, 37-51. 

Menkis, A., Redr, D., Bengtsson, V., Hedin, J., Niklasson, M., Nordén, B.,Dahlberg, A. (2020). Endophytes dominate fungal communities in six-year-old veteranisation wounds in living oak trunks. Fungal Ecology. 

Read, H., & Bengtsson, V. (2019). The management of trees in the wood pasture systems of South East England. In Silvicultures-Management and Conservation. London, UK: IntechOpen.

Hedin, J., Niklasson, M. & Bengtsson, V. (2018). Veteranisering – verktyg istället för tid. Fauna och Flora 113(2): 13–25. (Veteranisation – tools instead of time). 

Bengtsson, V., Niklasson, M, & Hedin, J. (2015). Tree veteranisation. Using tools instead of time. Conservation Land Management, Summer 2015.

Bengtsson, V. (2013). Protection of Trees: sites and surroundings. In Ancient and other veteran trees: further guidance on management. Lonsdale, D (ed.). The Tree Council, London.

Bengtsson, V., Hedin, J. & Niklasson, M. (2012). Veteranisation of Oak - managing trees to speed up habitat production. In: Rotherham, I.D., Handley, C., Agnoletti, M. and Samojlik, T. (eds) Trees Beyond the Wood: an exploration of concepts of woods, forests and trees, Wildtrack Publishing, Sheffield UK, pp.61-68. 

Read, H. J., Wheater, C., Forbes, V., & Young, J. (2010). The current status of ancient pollard beech trees at Burnham Beeches and evaluation of recent restoration techniques. Quarterly Journal of Forestry, 104(2), 109-120.