More adventures from Chris below!
A large part of my wonderful job involves identifying and measuring the population size of individual species, however as an ecologist this information is just one step in the process of working out how all the plants, insects, birds and animals interact with one another in one place at one time. The term used in ecology for these groups of species is a community, and of particular interest to me here on the Forth is how different plant communities are waging a slow but perceptible territorial war at the RSPB Skinflats reserve
Fig 1. Saltmarsh plants in the foreground. (credit: Chris Knowles)
This site was historically part of the large saltmarshes that lined areas of the inner Forth, but over the past 300 years the land has been land drained and claimed for agriculture. Now, part of the broad Futurescape vision is to turn this site into a working ecological model of how such land can be restored to its natural state which, as a powerful, natural flood defence will benefit humans as well as the abundance of wildlife that depends on saltmarsh habitat.
I find it amazing to observe the salt-tolerant marsh plants gain a stronger foothold each time the tides bring fresh sea onto the site, while the rough grassland plants are constantly pushing to reclaim lost ground from their patchy higher and drier retreats, taking advantage of any long period of lower tides and fresh, heavy rains.
The most obvious plants to watch in this ongoing land-war are the grasses, the coastal specialists have such different growth forms to the landlubbers it makes them easy to spot. A good example is Saltmarsh Grass (Puccinellia maritima) which can be seen in this photograph displaying small clusters of roots (called stolons) along it’s length. Rather than growing up in height, this grass can snake along the ground for up to 80cm.
Fig 2. Saltmarsh Grass (Puccinellia maritima) showing stolons and growing habit. (credit: Chris Knowles)
If you’ve spotted any wildlife around the forth that intrigued you, I’d love to hear about it – as I’m interested in the most common species, as well as the scarce.