Guidance Dunes: encroachment of grasses and shrubs
Index section Dunes: encroachment of grasses and shrubs
- The rabbit: shrubs and grass are encroaching in the dunes
- Dune birds: grass and shrub encroachment
- Nightingale and wheatear: scrub is encroaching in the dunes
Introduction
In the days when people harvested wood and there was extensive grazing, the dune landscape was almost bare. After these practices ceased at the beginning of the twentieth century, marram was planted and the atmospheric deposition of nitrogen increased, the natural succession accelerated and scrub has encroached, particularly on the calcareous dunes. The decline in rabbit numbers reinforced this vegetation change.
The encroachment of shrubs and fast-growing grasses has major implications for breeding birds and butterflies.
