Securing Biodiversity in Breckland - European Commission

Maidscross Hill is largely overgrown by closed or rank grassland and encroached by scrub. Theremaining open gravel and sand exposures are limited to a small area. The extensive lichen andtherophyte communities on the plateau around the margin of these pits have greatly been reducedin recent decades. There is an urgent need to rejuvenate bare ground, broken turf and ruderal plantcommunities at this site.Recommendation: Ensure that scrub removal, ploughing, turf removal, and creation of steep open exposureswithin pits is carried out at key sites of former gravel working on Maidscross Hill. The status and condition of remaining conservation resource at Red Lodge be examined, andrequired action be taken to ensure continuing conditions for the valuable species of disturbedground.Lightly or Ungrazed, Disturbed Open Space within the Forest LandscapeThe large resource of ungrazed (or lightly grazed by deer and hares) and intermittently disturbed rideand track-way verge within the Thetford Forest landscape, combined with the ruderal vegetation inrestocked plantations, provide opportunities for some dispersive species including scarce Coleoptera(Lin 2005; Bertoncelj 2010), Aranaea (Pedley unpublished data), Hymenoptera and moths. Thepotential of these areas as networks for dispersal are discussed further in the Networks for Resiliencesection.Grazing Susceptible PerennialsThe need to experiment with grazing susceptible perennials and steppe species in the cultivated andarable landscapeIn contrast to the clear evidence that annual plants benefit from cultivation, there is less clearevidence that historically intermittently cultivated habitats were also important to the suite ofperennial species requiring physically disturbed and ungrazed conditions (e.g. field mugwortArtemisia campestris, Spanish catchfly Silene otites). However, it is likely that the practice ofcultivating outfields for just one or two years and then leaving them fallow for long periods (Bailey1989) provided ideal conditions for perennials of low competitive ability to regenerate from theseedbank, establish as adults and seed prolifically for a number of years prior to sward closure.It is therefore likely that populations of short and long- lived perennials may have been dynamic andpersisted with prolific regeneration from large seed banks, despite high mortality of adult plantsduring episodes of ploughing. In 1971 Eric Duffey observed 40 plants of Silene otites growing acrossthe northern part of Foxhole heath, despite this part of the heath being ploughed when he workedthere during the mid 1950s. Similarly, plant lists made in 1950 and 1953 for Codson Hill include Sileneotites and this area was thought to have been arable previously (Tansley and Watt, undated).The relict distribution of some long lived perennial species such as Spanish catchfly Silene otites, andgrape hyacinth Muscari neglectum, which are often restricted to grass strips alongside arable fields(including road verges and banks), is strongly suggestive of them having once been common withinthe intermittently cultivated arable fields themselves. However, there are a number of alternative169