Heathland field trip

What to conserve?

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Welcome to site name!

• 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.

What are you going to do today?

• Understand what a SSSI is and why we need them;

• Use a quadrat to sample vegetation;

• Sample freshwater habitats using kick-sampling and pond-netting;

• Measure different parts of the physical environment (abiotic factors!);

• Identify common plant and invertebrate species;

• Make decisions about which habitats we should conserve.

Objectives:

• 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.

• SSSIs are specially protected against damaging activities

What is a SSSI?

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• Scientific surveys are conducted to understand the biological and/or geological value of the site.

• Sites that rate highly on the following categories are candidate SSSIs: species diversity, ‘naturalness’, rarity, fragility, value to society.

How are SSSIs chosen?

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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

What are you going to do?

• Use quadrats to record the different plant species living in the two habitats.

• Use techniques such as tree-beating and sweep netting to record the invertebrate 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.

Activities A & B: Woodland & Heathland surveys

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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.

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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 not rooted in the quadrat, but some of its leaves fall in the quadrat. Do you include it in your results for this quadrat?

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?

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.

What is lowland heathland?

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• 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.

How did heathland form?

7,000 years agoLowland Britain forested.

6,000 – 4,000 years agoWoodland cleared for farming.

4,000 years agoHeathland formed.

Most important habitat inthe UK for reptiles

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What lives there?Contains over 500 species of spiders

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 is rarer than tropical rainforest!

• 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