sandunes

• vegetation succesion

  • compete to inhabit an area
  • invade the area
  • grow in the area
  • colonise the area
  • die + decay in the area
  • add nutrients to the soil changing the conditions
• explain the role of vegetation in the formation of a psammosere

  • vegetation is the main reason for the formation of any psammosere because
  • when species invade
  • they colonize, grow, die decay
  • causing the process of vegetation succession
• psammosere are a sustainable method to fight climate change because

  • provide a natural barrier to flooding
  • trees take in co2
• humans use sand dunes for recreation

  many have been built on like northern wirral

  the succession process get disturbed which means it wont reach the final stages
• Christmas trees used on a beach

  provide barrier to the wind and sand storms

  the sand storms that happen due to storms

  increase in storms due to climate change
• natural footpaths are used to guide through dunes and not disturb the vegetation

  stop people walking on dunes

  wood wont cause harm and will decay giving nutrients to the vegetaion

  paths provide disabled access increasing diversity
• to manage sand dunes they could be made national parks of sites of special scientific interest or areas of outstanding natural beauty
• to manage sand dunes they could have special planning laws that restricts building on the dunes and harmful activitys
• embryo dunes

  • sea couch, lyme grass (halophytic, xerophytic)
  • the vegetation roots bind loose soil particles together to begin to stabilise to dune
• fore/mobile dune

  • marram grass, xerophytic
  • the long roots bind soil together and grass reduces wind speed and prevents wind erosion of loose sand
• fixed yellow dunes

  • marram, red fescue grass, creeping willow
  • as plants decay they add nutrients to the soil and change the ph
  • this allows soil to develop and other species can colonize
• slack

  • water table is reachable by most vegetation
  • blackberry bramble, gorse, sea bindweed, bracken, heather
  • more species so when they decay they add more nutreints into the soil and more humus
  • ph changes and other species can colonise the area
• grey dunes come after the slack
• the woodland of oak birch or pine comes after grey dunes

  they are the ccc (climatic climax community)

  max species of vegetation has been reached
• the ph becomes more acidic as you move inland
• the amount of moisture in the soil increases as you move inland due to more plant growing and more water available
• the amount of vegetation increases moving inland because soil conditions improve, so its easier for plants to grow
• the diversity of vegetation and animals increases as you move inland because more vegetation means more nutrients in the soils once died and decayed
• the seacouch is the pioneer community

  its halophytic - salt resistant

  its xerophytic - draught resistant
• on the strand line there is driftwood
• on the fore dune there is marram which roots reach the water table
• on the grey dunes there is different tree species which is deciduous woodland