Understanding Habitat

Amenity Grassland:
Grassland often artificially seeded and managed for recreational use or ornamentation, such as lawns.

Amenity Woodland:
Woodland composed of ornamental species or natural species planted for specific purposes like arboretums, parks, or shelter belts.

Brownfield Site:
An area whose habitat is totally artificial, resulting from specific human activity (e.g., arable farmland, quarries, gardens, roadsides).

Coniferous Woodland:
A woodland where 90% or more of the trees are evergreens, primarily consisting of pine, spruce, and fir species in plantations.

Cross-leaved Heath:
An indicator species of wet heath, typically found in lower, damp areas.

Dry Heath:
A sub-habitat of heathland typically found in higher areas on sandy soils, where primary species include ling, bell heather, and dwarf gorse.

Habitat:
The natural home of an animal or plant; for animals, this implies a plentiful food supply and shelter to raise a family, while for plants, it means appropriate light, moisture, minerals, and minimal competition.

Habitat Mix (or Profile):
A general indicator of the habitat types present on a site, determined by analysing the habitat preferences of vegetative species found there.

Indicator Species:
Plants or animals that typically thrive only in specific conditions or habitat types, serving as a useful guide to identifying the presence of that habitat.

Ling:
An indicator species of dry heath, commonly found in sandy soil conditions.

Micro-habitat:
A very small, unique area within a larger habitat that possesses distinct conditions, often supporting highly specialised species that have carved out a particular niche.

Mixed Woodland:
Woodland where there isn't a clear distinction of 90% broadleaf or coniferous trees; it can also refer to areas where conifers have been planted alongside deciduous trees.

National Vegetation Classification (NVC) System:
Another commonly used system in the United Kingdom for quantifying and classifying habitats, often serving different purposes than Phase 1.

Phase 1 Habitat Surveying:
A classification methodology developed by the Nature Conservancy Council (now Natural England) that provides detailed, unambiguous parameters for 10 major habitat classifications and their sub-types, used for producing objective and consistent survey results.

Primary Habitats:
Broad, overarching habitat types such as woodland, scrub, grassland, heath, freshwater environments, and coastal areas, often representing distinct stages in ecological succession.

Semi-natural Woodland:
Woodland that is largely composed of native species but may have been influenced by human activity over time, as opposed to a plantation.

Sub-habitat:
A variation or subdivision within a primary habitat class, such as "dry heath" within "heathland," or "rivers" within "freshwater."

Succession Process:
The natural process of change in an ecosystem over time, often leading from bare ground to a climax community like woodland. The text refers to "stages of intervention" in this process as a basis for primary habitat types.

Wet Heath:
A sub-habitat of heathland found in lower areas prone to water retention, where the dominant heather species is typically cross-leaved heath.