The South Haven Peninsula Survey (Studland Heath, Dorset): General Scheme of the Survey

Abstract

IN 1931 an attempt was made to map in detail the distributions of the grasshopper species found within a defined part of Studland Heath (Diver, C. and P., 1933). This preliminary trial showed that the much more ambitious scheme of a complete biological study of the peninsula was, at the least, worth attempting; and work was at once begun both upon the history of the area and upon such surveys of plant and animal groups as could then be undertaken. The area to be surveyed was increased so as to include all of the peninsula that falls within easily defined boundaries, and as now delimited contains roughly 750 acres of which about 80 are under inland water (Diver, 1933). An examination of the flowering plants and ferns has been made and a general account of their ecology has been completed (Good, in press); a second paper including geographical and floristic analyses of the vegetation and its comparison with that of similar areas elsewhere is in preparation. With the essential framework of the plant distribution determined, it is our object to bring into action a body of workers who, while making separate studies of the groups in which they are specialists, will yet do so with a co-ordination in attack and a unity in aim towards the ultimate objectivethe elucidation of the complex bonds that hold together a complete society of plants and animals. The peninsula has great biological importance and this is largely due to its remarkable history. Since it is a coastal strip at the mouth of a harbour its topography has been well surveyed in the past. Thus a reasonably clear history of the physiographical and other changes that have taken place in the last 300 years can be constructed (Diver, 1933). Though it is a classic locality long known to biologists, no previous co-ordinated effort appears to have been made to examine the area in any detail or to follow the very rapid changes that have taken place even during the present century; much valuable information has, therefore, already been lost. However, changes are even now in progress and the area is still one peculiarly suited to the study of the responses made by populations to an unstable environment. A detailed map, on a scale of 6 in. to the mile, has been published and, through the courtesy of the Director-General of the Ordnance Survey, this bears the new national grid drawn in 100 yard squares. The value of such a grid in work of this kind is too obvious to need elaboration. Of this map