Transcript What to conserve?

© Amy Rogers
© Amy Rogers
© Amy Rogers
© Carl Corbidge
Heathland field trip
What to conserve?
Welcome to site name!
What are you going to do today?
• You will be spending today finding about
three very different habitats.
• You’ll get a chance to have a go at some
different ecological survey techniques to
help you think about which habitats are the
most important to protect.
• At the end of the day your group will have to
decide which habitat should be protected.
Objectives:
• Understand what a SSSI is and why we need them;
• Use a quadrat to sample vegetation;
• Sample freshwater habitats using kick-sampling and pondnetting;
• Measure different parts of the physical environment (abiotic
factors!);
• Identify common plant and invertebrate species;
• Make decisions about which habitats we should conserve.
What is a SSSI?
• SSSI stands for Site of Special Scientific Interest.
• There are over 4,000 SSSIs in England!
• SSSIs contain the best wildlife and geological in the country.
© Dave Fox
© Dave Fox
© Dave Fox
• SSSIs are specially protected against damaging activities
How are SSSIs chosen?
• Scientific surveys are conducted to understand the biological
and/or geological value of the site.
© Roger Key
© Dave Fox
© Roger Key
• Sites that rate highly on the following categories are candidate
SSSIs: species diversity, ‘naturalness’, rarity, fragility, value to
society.
What are you going to do?
10am – 10:30am
Introduction
10:30 – 11:30 am
Woodland sampling
11:45 – 12:45 pm
Heathland sampling
13:00 – 13:30 pm
Lunch
13:30 – 14:30 pm
River sampling
14:30 – 14:45 pm
Which habitat to conserve?
15:00 pm
Depart
Activities A & B: Woodland & Heathland
surveys
• Use quadrats to record the different plant
species living in the two habitats.
• How many species did you find?
• Use simple environmental measures to
determine if there are any abiotic conditions
that make these habitats special.
© Peter Crittenden
• Use techniques such as tree-beating and
sweep netting to record the invertebrate
species living in the two habitats.
© Peter Crittenden
Activities A & B - using quadrats to record
plant species
• Place the quadrat over the area of
vegetation to be surveyed.
• Search the quadrat to find all the
different plants that are within it.
Activities A & B - using quadrats
• How will you know if plants are different
species? Try looking for differences in
the:
• Flowers (colour, number of petals,
shape)
• Leaves (colour, shape, arrangement on
stem)
• Growth form (tall, woody, creeping, etc.)
• Use the plant ID guides to help you
identify the plants.
Activities A & B - using quadrats to record
plant species
You need to be consistent in the way you collect the data. In your
group, think about the following questions and decide how you will
collect your data.
The plant is rooted in the quadrat, but all of
its leaves fall outside the quadrat. Do you
include it in your results for this quadrat?
The plant is not rooted in the quadrat, but
some of its leaves fall in the quadrat. Do you
include it in your results for this quadrat?
Activity C: Water survey
• Use kick-sampling and pond-netting to
find out what species of invertebrate
live in the freshwater habitat.
• Use simple environmental measures to
determine if there are any abiotic
conditions that make this habtiat
special.
Activity D: What to conserve?
• In your group you will use the data you collected in the three
habtiats to decide which habitat you think should be protected.
• You will need to be able to justify why it should be made into a
SSSI and why the other two habitats should not.
• Back at school you will make a short presentation to the rest of
your class explaining and justifying your decision.
• Found at elevations of less than 300 m
above sea-level.
• Open habitat with few trees.
• Dominated by dwarf shrubs, particularly
heather.
• Have sandy, acidic, low-nutrient soils.
© Lauren Gough
What is lowland heathland?
How did heathland form?
• Historical clearance of woodland for grazing and agriculture.
• When the nutrients in the soil were depleted the farmers
cultivated new areas.
• Heathland established on the abandoned areas.
7,000 years ago
Lowland Britain forested.
6,000 – 4,000 years ago
Woodland cleared for farming.
4,000 years ago
Heathland formed.
What lives there?
© Carl Corbidge
Contains over 500
Most important
species ofhabitat
spidersin
the UK for reptiles
Four bird species associated primarily with this habitat.
Three are on the Red List!
Heathland is a very rare habitat
• Since 1800 the UK has lost over 80%
of it’s lowland heathland.
• Heathland
rainforest!
is
rarer
than
tropical
• The UK still has 20% of the world’s
total amount!
What is threatening heathland?
• Loss due to fire and building houses.
• Damage from inappropriate use (e.g. dirt bike riders)
• Nitrogen pollution