7. Ecological Succession

7.2 Conservation of Habitats

Starter

What is conservation? Come up with a definition.

Starter

Conservation is the management of the Earth’s natural resources in such a way that maximum use of them can be made in the future.

Learning Objectives

Describe what conservation is Explain how managing succession can help to

conserve habitats

Success Criteria You can state the reasons for conservation and

give examples of managing succession leading to the conservation of habitats

What is conservation?

Conservation involves humans intervening to maintain ecosystems and biodiversity

It can involve caring for existing resources or reclaiming those that have already been damaged by human activity

Reasons for Conservation

In pairs (or alone, if you really want), come up with a list of reasons for conservation

Reasons for Conservation

Ethical: respect for living things, other species should be allowed to coexist

Economic: living organisms have a huge gene pool and may have the capacity to make millions of substances

Cultural and Aesthetic: habitats enrich our lives and inspire writers, poets etc who entertain and fulfil us

Conserving habitats by managing succession Climax communities do not contain all the

species that existed in earlier stages Maintaining habitats at different stages of

succession can keep these species present, by preventing change to the next stage

UK example Much of the higher ground in the UK is

moorland, sheep are grazed and the heather often burned on this land

This prevents the climax community being reached as the young tree saplings are destroyed, stopping progression to deciduous woodland

Task

Work through the Application and How Science Works questions on page 109-110 of the textbook

Learning Objectives

Describe what conservation is Explain how managing succession can help to

conserve habitats

Success Criteria You can state the reasons for conservation and

give examples of managing succession leading to the conservation of habitats