Heathland field tripMapping for Climate Change

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Welcome to site name!

• You will be spending today acting as an environmental scientist.

• You will try some ecological surveys techniques to determine the health of a very rare habitat; lowland heathland.

• You will use GPS to map out a conservation area.

• Your results could help inform the management of site name.

What are you going to do today?

• Explain what a heathland is and why they are threatened;

• Use a GPS to mark locations and map areas;

• Use a quadrat to sample vegetation;

• Explain why corridors linking habitats are really important;

• Discuss the factors we need to think about when deciding where to put a habitat corridor.

Objectives:

• 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.

What lives there? Contains over 500 species of spidersMost important habitat in

the UK for reptiles

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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?• Damage from inappropriate use (e.g. dirt bike riders)

• Nitrogen pollution

• Loss due to fire and building houses = habitat fragmentation

What is habitat fragmentation?• Habitat fragmentation occurs when a

previously continuous habitat is broken into discontinuous patches.

www.treesforlife.org

Habitat fragmentation and climate change• Climate change is predicted to affect temperate and the pattern of

rainfall.

• If the climate conditions in an area change too much plants and animals may need to move to a new area where conditions are suitable in order to survive.

• Moving between habitat fragments is much harder than moving through a continuous habitat.

Habitat corridors• To help reduce the impacts of

habitat fragmentation, habitat corridors can be built.

• Habitat corridors link habitat fragments, enabling plants and animals to move between habitat patches.

FarmlandHeathland

Heathland habitat corridor

9:30am – 10:00am Introduction

10:00am – 11:00amLearning to use a GPS

Activity A: Orienteering with a GPS

11:00am – 12:00 pm Activity B: Vegetation surveying

12:00pm – 12:45 pm Lunch

12:45pm – 2:45pmActivity C: Mapping an area

Activity D: Locating a habitat corridor

2:45pm Depart

What are you going to do?

Learning to use a GPS• Your task – understand how GPS

receivers work and familiarise yourself with the controls.

Activity A• Your task – learn how to use a GPS

receiver to save waypoints (the coordinates of your location).

Activity B• Your task – using a quadrat sample the vegetation to

investigate how healthy the heathland is.

• Nitrogen pollution can affect the ecology of heathlands.

• Nitrogen deposition favours fast-growing species like bramble, bracken and grass which can out-compete heathland plants such as heather and gorse.

• A healthy (i.e., unpolluted) heathland should have an average percentage cover of heather of at least 25% and no more than 50% cover of grass.

Activity B - using quadrats to measure plant percentage cover

• Place the quadrat over the area of vegetation to be surveyed.

• Look at the quadrat from directly above.

• The total area of ground within the quadrat is 100%.

• For each plant species, estimate the % area of the quadrat that it covers.

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Activity B - using quadrats to measure plant percentage cover

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• Your task – Use your GPS receiver to map the extent of a

heathland fragment.

• Display your map on Google Earth.

Activity D• Your task – decide where it is best to position a habitat corridor

to link two heathland fragments.

• You will need to consider:

• Cost – the longer the corridor is the more money it will cost to build and maintain it.

• Other habitats – are there any other natural habitats you will be fragmenting by the construction of your corridor?

• Human land-use – will your corridor require buildings and/or roads to be removed/relocated?