Glossary for Conservation
Abiotic
Aerobic
Aerosols
Aesthetic
degradation
Ambient gases
Arresting factors
Artificial
insemination
Atmosphere
Non- living components of an ecosystem and includes; climate (temperature and
precipitation), soil characteristics, parent rock, air, relief and drainage characteristics.
Living or occurring only in the presence of oxygen.
Minute particles or liquid droplets suspended in the air.
Changes in environmental quality that offend our aesthetic senses.
The surrounding environmental gases that is available to organisms.
The factors that cause succession to be interrupted
A form of selective breeding where semen is collected from a chosen male and is
inserted artificially into the chosen female to cause her to become pregnant.
The gases surrounding the Earth. Different layers are characterised by their
temperature, density, turbulence and composition.
Autotroph
Green plants that photosynthesise to produce food to support trophic levels above
them.
Azonal soil
Immature soil with poorly developed profile. E.g. volcanic soil
biodiversity
Is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or on the entire Earth.
Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. The
biodiversity found on Earth today consists of many millions of distinct biological
species.
Biomass
The total mass of living organisms present in a community at any one time- kg/m2
Biome
A major global ecosystem influenced by the climate. E.g. Tropical Rainforest
Biosphere
All the living organisms on Earth
Biotic
Community of interdependent living components in an ecosystem includes;
vegetation, grasses, herbs, ferns, algae, mosses shrubs, trees (living and
decomposing) mammals, insects, birds and micro organisms.
Blowouts
These occur when the wind causes erosion of the dune rather than deposition. They
can take place naturally due to severe weather events, but many of the blowouts that
we see around the British coast have occurred due to degradation of the vegetation
caused by trampling and footpath erosion or BBQ fires.
Brown Earth
A Zonal soil for temperate deciduous woodland, commonly on clay soils
Calcification
Calcium is no longer removed if leaching is limited (evapotranspiration> precipitation)
and so it accumulates
Carnivore
An animal which only eats meat; trophic level 3
Catena
a sequence of soils down slopes
Cation exchange The chemical replacement of cations within the soil
Cheluviation
Organic- metal compounds (chelates) are soluble and easily transported down the
profile.
CITES
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (of wild flora and
fauna) e.g. ivory
Climatic climax The final stage in succession, the richest community for a climate. E.g. deciduous
vegetation
Colonisers
woodland SE England.
First plants to invade- e.g. lichens and mosses. These plants have adaptations which
allow them to grow in a difficult environment e.g. waxy leaves to retain moisture and
withstand winds, prostrate (low) habit to avoid strong winds, deep tap roots to obtain
available moisture
Community
The entire variety of species that are found in an ecosystem.
Conservation
the protection and possible enhancement of natural environments to ensure their
survival for future use
Cryopreservation The preservation of material by freezing such as the freezing of semen for artificial
insemination.
Decomposers
Organisms that take the remains of dead plants and animals, as well as excreted
waste and convert them back to carbon dioxide and nutrients. E.g. Bacteria and fungi
Deforestation
The deliberate clearance of forest from land by cutting or burning. Causes
Plagioclimax vegetation.
Detritivores
Organisms that brake down leaves and dead animals; reducing them by
decomposition back into soil nutrients
Ecology
The study of communities of living organisms and the relationships among the
members of those communities and between them and the physical and chemical
constituents of their surroundings
Ecosystem
A dynamic, stable, community of interdependent living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic)
components.
Eluviation
Process of washing out of materials in suspension e.g. clay from the A to the B horizon
in a podsol. (see leaching)
Embryo transfer The transfer of fertilised eggs or embryos, from a female of a rare species, into
females of a closely related, more common species. This enables more young to be
produced than could be achieved through normal breeding. It Is also used in livestock
breeding.
Endemic
A spies indigenous to that region and not naturally found elsewhere. This word is also
used for diseases and means that it is normally present (e.g. Malaria)
Environmental
ESS An agri-environmental scheme where farmers receive payments for farm
Stewardship
management practices that benefit wildlife and the environment. Higher payments
Scheme
are available for organic farms.
EU Common
EU agreement to manage fishing and aquaculture. It attempts to manage the needs of
Fisheries Policy
the Member States and their fishing industries with sustainable exploitation of the
environment.
Fauna
Animals
Flora
Plants
Food chain
A sequence of energy transfers from one trophic level to another. A food web is a
more realistic and complex interconnected sequence.
Fragile
Is one which is easily disturbed and that lacks resilience to change, many fragile
Environments
environments cross national boundaries, creating international management
challenges. Human activity , both direct and indirect (in the guise of pollution and
global warming) has damaged many fragile environments, some irreparably
Gene pool
The total variety of different genes in all the members of a population.
Gersmehl
Stores are drawn proportional circles representing biomass, litter and soil. Nutrient
diagram
transfers are shown as arrows whose thickness represents the relative rate of flow
Gleying
Greenhouse gas
Habitats
Herbivore
Horizon
Humus
Humification
Hydrosphere
Illuviation
Inbreeding
Indigenous
species
International
Whaling
Commission
Intrazonal soil
kite diagram
Leaching
Lithosphere
Micro- habitats
Micropropagation
MNRs
Monoculture
Organic farming
Niche
NNRs
Nutrient cycling
photosynthesis
Photolysis
between stores.
Reduction of ferric to ferrous iron under waterlogged conditions.
A gas that absorbs infrared radiation and causes global heating
Specific locations with a particular set of conditions and an appropriately adapted
community e.g. a hedgerow
an animal that only eats plants; tropic level 2
a distinct horizontal layer in a soil profile
decomposed organic matter in the Ao horizon
Soil organisms break down organic matter to form humus.
All the water on Earth found in solid, liquid or gaseous form in a variety of reservoirs
including the oceans, ice caps, rivers and lakes, soil, groundwater, atmosphere and
living organisms.
Process of deposition or washing in of soil material from the A to the B horizon in a
podsol. This material has been removed from an upper horizon by eluviation.
Breeding between closely related individuals. It increases the risk of recessive genes
producing offspring with disadvantageous characteristics.
Species that are native to the area
The IWC is an international organisation that aims to ensure the sustainable
exploitation of whales
Soil with locally modified characteristics e.g. Water logging produces a gley soil
Graph that shows succession
Removal of base cations from the soil by acidic rainwater (see eluviation) where
precipitation exceeds evaporation.
The relatively hard outer layer of Earth, consisting of the crust and upper layer of the
mantle.
Small specific locations e.g. under a leaf
A tissue culture method where large numbers of plants can be produced from a tissue
sample from an original plant without the need for seeds. The young plants may be
raised on agar under sterile conditions.
Marine Nature Reserves.
Plantations that produce only one species of tree or one type of food – on rainforest
soil are examples of non-sustainable agriculture.
Farming using natural manures and avoids the use of chemical pesticides and
fertilisers.
The niche of a species is the role that it plays in its habitat, which includes how it
makes use of resources and responds to other species in its habitat.
National Nature Reserves.
The cycling of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus taken up by plants, passed up to
herbivores, carnivores and then broken down by detritivores who reduce them by
decomposition back into soil nutrients
The process in green plants and certain other organisms by which carbohydrates are
synthesised from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source, usually
releasing oxygen as a by-product.
The splitting of molecules by light, including the splitting of water molecules in the
Pioneer species
Plagioclimax
Podsol
Podsolisation
Primary
consumer
Primary
succession
Productivity
Psammosere
Ramsar
Red list species
Regolith
RSPB
SACs
Salinisation
Secondary
consumers
Secondary
succession
Sere
Soil acidity
Soil profile
Soil structure
Soil texture
SPAs
Succession
Sustainability
SSSIs
Teratology
Thermophilic
early atmosphere, producing oxygen.
Plants which invade bare ground, hardy and adapted to harsh environments. E.g.
long-rooted salt tolerant marram grass.
Plant community halted by human activity e.g. heather moorland at Studland grazed
by sheep.
A Zonal soil under coniferous forest and heath land especially on sandy, free- draining
parent rock.
The development of an acid soil in cool temperate climates.
AKA Herbivores- animals and occasionally plants that obtains their energy by eating
green plants.
(Also called prisere). A process where an area is vegetated e.g. bare rock (lithosere)
The rate of creation of living matter by photosynthesis. Kg/m2/year.
A succession on sand dunes
A wetland site designated to protect its biodiversity.
Red is the highest conservation priority, with species needing urgent action.
 Globally threatened
 Historical population decline in UK during 1800–1995
 Severe (at least 50%) decline in UK breeding population over last 25 years, or
longer-term period (the entire period used for assessments since the first BoCC
review, starting in 1969).
 Severe (at least 50%) contraction of UK breeding range over last 25 years, or the
longer-term period
Amber is the next most critical group, followed by green.
Weathered rock debris
Royal Society fro the protection of birds
Special Areas of Conservation.
Process, by which salts are drawn to the surface by strong evaporation, may result in
solid duricrust on the surface.
AKA carnivores- meat eaters
A succession which occurs on a previously vegetated surface that has been disturbed.
A stage in the development of a plant community.
The concentration of hydrogen ions in a soil, measured on pH scale.
A vertical section through the soil to show horizons
The arrangement of soil particles into aggregates or peds. E.g. crumbs
Relative proportion of sizes clay, sand and silt. A loam is a mixture of all three,
creating a fertile soil.
Special Protection Areas.
A series of changes that take place in a plant community over time.
Is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems
remain diverse and productive over time.
Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
The study of causes of birth defects.
Heat- loving such as the bacteria that live around hot volcanic vents and springs.
Translocation
Transpiration
Trophic level
Urban niches
Vavilov Centre
Weathering
Wildlife and
Wildlife and
Countryside Act
Zonal soils
Zones
The movement of soil components (in solution/ suspension) up or down through the
profile.
The loss of water by evaporation from the stomata of leaves.
A level in which energy is transferred from one group of organisms in the food chain
to another. Level 1 –autotrophs (plants), level 2 –primary (that feed on level 1)
consumers and so on.
Colonisation of wasteland: the development of distinctive ecologies along routeways
(e.g. roads and railways). The planned and unplanned introduction of new species
and the impact of this on ecosystems.
An area of the world identified by the Russian zoologist Nicolai Vavilov, where crop
plants were first domesticated and where wild varieties are still found.
Process which breaks down rocks in situ
A UK Act of Parliament that provides protection for many wildlife species and
designated protected areas.
A major group of mature soils which reflect the climate and vegetation of the area in
which they are found. E.g. podzols.
Units within biomes e.g. layers in rainforest