Five primary habitats in one place; woodland, heath, sand dune, coastal marsh and tidal estuary!
In this series I have tried to explain why reading, classifying and protecting habitat is both important and interesting.
- I started by defining what a 'habitat' actually is and then considered how they have formed, in some cases, over thousands of years
- I introduced some thoughts about how geography and geology influence habitat formation
- I then attempted to explain how all of the natural habitat we have today is the result of human intervention in the ongoing process of succession and how, when the pace of change was much slower than now certain ancient habitat types came about (woodland, scrub, grassland, heath and so on)
- I considered how the remaining fragments of 'natural' habitat can be protected and managed for the future
- That led to thoughts about how habitat can be classified and why classification is useful
- Then I moved on to the importance of key indicator species and how that helps classify habitat and also enables us to predict what species we might find in that type of habitat.
- Finally, I provided a table of the main habitat types sub-divided by further characteristics
This course has looked at habitat issues in general rather than at specific types of habitat in detail. I hope it has stimulated your interest in habitats and will want to learn more about them. I have collected together some other bits and pieces that supplement and amplify the contents of this course and they appear in the following 'resources' section. Anyone who feels inspired to take this further may want to try the 'assignment' project I have included.
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