Heathlands

Question 1

Which type of heathland are especially endangered?

Answer 1

Lowland heaths

Question 2

Which two countries contain the majority of the world’s stock of Atlantic heath?

Answer 2

The UK and Ireland

Question 3

Where is the heathland ‘stronghold’?

Answer 3

Dorset/New Forest Area.

Question 4

What elevation does upland heath have to be to be classed as upland heath?

Answer 4

Greater than 300m above sea level

Question 5

What are the main features of heaths?

Answer 5

1) They have infertile acidic soils
(pH of about 4.5 in the surface layer, can be as low as 3.0 in deeper layers).

2) Little vertical mixing due to lack of Earthworms

Question 6

What is the definitive heathland soil profile known as?

Answer 6

A podsol (Russian: ash under soil).

Question 7

What do most heaths result from?

Answer 7

Man-made habitat destruction. The damage was done during the bronze age; forest clearance and land over-exploitation.

(Do bear in mind that heathland is not entirely man-made, it was around before humans).

Question 8

How do we know that heathlands were expanding/prominent during the bronze age?

Answer 8

1) Pollen analysis

2) Original soil profile can be found preserved under bronze-age burial mounds.

Question 9

Where would be the worst place to try and make a heath?

Answer 9

A chalk quarry. It has a pH of 8.5!

Question 10

What is the name (including scientific name) of the definitive plant that gave its name to the habitat ‘heathland’?

Answer 10

Heath /Calluna vulgaris/

Question 11

How long does the life cycle of heather take? How does it end?

Answer 11

About 30 years. It ends at a degenerate phase which is very prone to invasion by pine or birch.

Question 12

List other plants in the that grow on heaths.

Answer 12

1) Bell heathers (/Erica spp./)
2) Bilberry (/Vaccinium myrtilis/)
3) Purple Moor Grass (/Molinia caerulea/)
4) Common gorse (/Ulex europaeus/)

Question 13

Name a plant one might find in the wetter regions of a heathland. Why does it have the name it was given?

Answer 13

Bog asphodel (/Narthecium ossifragum/) or bone-breaker.

It is called such because cattle that grazed in its meadows broke their bones because of calcium deficiency.

Question 14

All UK reptiles occupy heaths and two are found nowhere else. Name them.

Answer 14

1) Adder
2) Grass snake
3) Slow worm
4) Sand lizard
5) Smooth snake

The smooth snake and the sand lizard are only found in heathlands.

Question 15

Name a heath-specific bird (including scientific name) and give a bit of information about it.

Answer 15

The Dartford Warbler. /Sylvia undata/.

It requires a gorse-heather mosaic.
It is a mediterranean species at its northern limits on our southern lowland heaths.

Question 16

What bird nests in heaths but hunts in oak woodlands?

Answer 16

The nightjar /Caprimulga europaeus/

Question 17

Name a species of spider that is confined to small patches of heath and are very poor colonisers.

Answer 17

The ladybird spider. /Ereseus cinnaberinus/

Question 18

Name a species of butterfly that depends mostly on heaths.

Answer 18

The silver-studded blue butterfly. /Plebejus argus/.

It is a heath specialist. It can be found on dunes but its main habitat is heathland where it depends on /Lasius/ ants to protect its caterpillars.

Question 19

When did lowland heath peak? Why was it at its peak?

Answer 19

It peaked at about 190,000 ha around the 16th century when peasant farmers used the common lands for grazing, firewood and turbiary.

Question 20

When and why did heathlands decline?

Answer 20

Between 1800 and 1983 heathlands declined by 75% due to modern agriculture

Question 21

How much heathland remains now?

Answer 21

Natural England estimated 60,000 ha remain in England in 2007.

Question 22

Thomas, 1985

Answer 22

“Through declining traditional management, suitable habitat” for silver-studded blue butterfly “is created only sporadically in modern Britain. Some of these habitats (especially on heathland) are short-lived.”

Question 23

Define plagio-climax community

Answer 23

Plagio-climax community is an area or habitat in which the influences of the humans have prevented the ecosystem from developing further. The

Question 24

Langston et al., 2007

Answer 24

“Several successive studies of European Nightjars Caprimulgus europaeus (hereafter, Nightjar) on the Dorset heaths demonstrated negative effects of the proximity of urban development and associated disturbance from access on foot by people and dogs… Management measures are recommended to minimize the effects of walkers and their dogs on Nightjars.”

Question 25

Bakker et al., 1983

Answer 25

Grazing resulted locally in an increased species diversity, greater variation of vegetation types and greater differences in height and cover of the canopy.

Question 26

Gimingham, 1975

Answer 26

[heather] is relatively resisitant to repeated grazing. Each time the growing tips are cut back there is a stock of short-shoots ready to take their place, or even is these are used up there are groups of ‘reserve’ buds.