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Call to save English rainforest: |
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GemmaJF Admin Group Joined: 25 Jan 2003 No. of posts: 2090  View other posts by GemmaJF |
Posted: 28 Sep 2004
Gemma Fairchild, Independent Ecological Consultant |
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herpetologic2 Senior Member Joined: 15 Jun 2004 No. of posts: 1369  View other posts by herpetologic2 |
Posted: 10 Oct 2004
Surely the Canvey Island Northwick Road site, Essex is the English Rainforest? it has thousands of invertebrates which everyone is trying to protect from EEDA and the development planned for this site. It also has reptiles and amphibians but they are just things to be dealt with as one English nature official put it........the Shrill Carder Bee and other species are far more important........and all this on a Brownfield Site - is wastland the new brown errr heathland?
Vice Chair of ARG UK - self employed consultant - visit ARG UK & Alresford Wildlife |
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Skywalker Member Joined: 11 Oct 2003 No. of posts: 6  View other posts by Skywalker |
Posted: 04 Nov 2004 Tell me about it - the shrill carder (or F*****g shrill carder bee) is a species of bare ground/early successional habitats. in other words it is characteristic of sites where an successional/ephemeral habitat mix is available or maintained. In the Thames Gateway we curently have ephemeral habitats coming out of our ears - 'cos its full of sites that have been abandoned by previous uses. These are not analogous to rainforest as they are not in any form of equilibrium (dynamic or otherwise) - they are just well recorded and have temporary 'cor blimey' habitat diversity. This bombus and it's close relatives and part of a set of 'normally' rare species you would expect to find where bare earth and early successional habitats are extant ( with other factors managed) and is by definition not close to a sustainable in any givien specific geographical location but is sustanable at larger landscape scale. Herps and other characteristic species are a bit different because their habitats work on longer timescales and exist only with greater terrestrial connectivity. The carder bee is in fact a 'classic' Levins metapopulation model species in that it's survivorship is detemined by the avavlibitly of disperse (in landscape terms at a scale relevant to the species) suitable habitat parcels. When - O - when will we get to an ethos applying metapopulation/sensible spatial ecological theory (applied at relevant scales) to on the ground conservation from our lead organisations? i've had a bad decade - can you tell? (PS. excuse speeling and double letter faux pas - I'm a tad dislexic) Simon (KRAG) |
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Suzi Senior Member Joined: 06 Apr 2005 No. of posts: 860  View other posts by Suzi |
Posted: 16 Sep 2009 I live in East Devon and some of the creatures the authorities/conservationists fall over backwards to try and help are fairly underwhelming in terms of appeal and actually seeing them. I'm not saying this makes them any less precious than the more visible stuff but some of them can be hard to get excited about. Managing areas to encourage/conserve these specimens is not always to the benefit of other species as we know from cattle grazing/scraping etc. Surely a lightish overall touch management-wise is better. The other thing is birds and other flying things can move in or move out but reptiles.... Suz |
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AGILIS Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 No. of posts: 694  View other posts by AGILIS |
Posted: 17 Feb 2011 Good point Susi keith  LOCAL ICYNICAL CELTIC ECO WARRIOR AND FAILED DRUID |
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- Call to save English rainforest |