Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T09:13:54.002Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Experimental Approach to the Reclamation of a Limestone Quarry Floor: The First Three Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Jean M. Dixon  and
David J. Hambler
Jean M. Dixon
Affiliation:
Experimental Officer & Chairman, respectively, Postgraduate School of Studies in Biological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, England, UK.
David J. Hambler
Affiliation:
Experimental Officer & Chairman, respectively, Postgraduate School of Studies in Biological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, England, UK.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

‘Three-inch [7.5 cm] crusher-run’ limestone proved entirely suitable as a substratum for the rapid establishment of pioneer vegetation on a quarry floor, but only with the addition of fertilizers. A manure derived from sewage and an NPK fertilizer mixture proved suitable additives. A grass variety (Festuca rubra var. fallax Hack.) was sown, and became established on the substratum treated with either additive. Immigrant mosses soon became dominant in a grass/moss community on the manured substratum, whilst F. rubra retained its ascendancy on the NPK-treated material. The moss-dominated community was not attractive to Rabbits, whereas the grass-dominated community proved attractive to these animals which are accepted as beneficial for conservation in this particular context.

Further observations are required to assess (a) whether the by-passing of a cryptogamic stage in the prisere encouraged by the NPK mixture is a worthwhile objective, (b) whether the observed dominance of mosses encouraged by manure will be broken by F. rubra, and (c) whether the establishment of desirable immigrant species occurs differentially between the treatments. Meanwhile a perceptible degree of rehabilitation within three years may be claimed as a result of treatments producing a total plant cover of between 40% and 70%.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Spring 1984 , pp. 19 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, S.E., Grimshaw, H.M., Parkinson, J.A. & Quarmby, C. (1974). Chemical Analysis of Ecological Materials. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, England, UK: x + 565 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Bradshaw, A.D. & Chadwick, M.J. (1980). The Restoration of Land. (Studies in Ecology, Volume 6.) Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, England, UK: xi + 317 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Coppin, N.J. & Bradshaw, A.D. (1982). Quarry Reclamation. Mining Journal Books Ltd, London, England, UK: viii + 112 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Curtis, L.F., Courtney, F.M. & Trudgill, S. (1976). Soils in the British Isles. Longman, London, England, UK: viii + 364 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Davis, B.N.K. (1982). Regional variation in quarries. Pp. 12–9, illustr., in Ecology of Quarries. Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Cambridge, England, UK: 77 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Gay, P.E., Grubb, P.J. & Hudson, H.J. (1982). Seasonal changes in the concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and in the density of mycorrhiza in biennial and matrix-forming perennial species of closed grassland turf. Journal of Ecology, 70(2), pp. 571–93, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gemmell, R.P. (1974). Use of sulphur-coated urea for revegetation of blast furnace slag. Nature (London), 247, pp. 199–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gemmell, R.P. (1977). Colonization of Industrial Wasteland. (Studies in Biology No. 80.) Edward Arnold, London, England, UK: iv + 75 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Gemmell, R.P. & Crombie, S.A. (1976). Management of waste tips for enhancement of landscape quality. Landscape Research News, 1(2), pp. 10–1, illustr.Google Scholar
Goodman, G.T. & Bray, S.A. (1975). Ecological Aspects of the Reclamation of Derelict and Disturbed Land. Geo Abstracts Ltd., University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, UK: iv + 351 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Grime, J.P. (1979). Plant Strategies and Vegetation Processes. John Wiley, Chichester, England, UK: xi + 222 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Hartwright, T.U. (1974). Worked-out gravel land: a challenge and an opportunity. Environmental Conservation, 1(2), pp. 139–43, illustr.Google Scholar
Heslop-Harrison, J.W. & Richardson, J.A. (1953). The magnesian limestone area of Durham and its vegetation. Transactions Northern Naturalists' Union, 2(1), pp. 1–27, illustr.Google Scholar
Heslop-Harrison, J.W. & Richardson, J.A. (1954). Further investigations in the flora of the magnesian limestone area of Durham. Proceedings University of Durham Philosophical Society, 12, pp. 35–42.Google Scholar
Hubbard, C.E. (1968). Grasses. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, UK: 463 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Humphries, R.N. (1976). The revegetation of limestone quarries. Pp. 443–76 in Papers of the Land Reclamation Conference 1976. Thurrock Borough Council, Grays, Essex, England, UK: iii + 589 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Humphries, R.N. (1982). The establishment of vegetation on quarry materials: physical and chemical constraints. Pp. 55–61, illustr., in Ecology of Quarries. Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Cambridge, England, UK: 77 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, D.W. & Pigott, C.D. (1973). The response of grasslands on sugar-limestone in Teesdale to application of phosphorus and nitrogen. Journal of Ecology, 61(1), pp. 85–92, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, L.J. (1966). Weeds of the World. (Plant Science Monographs edited by Polunin, Nicholas.) Leonard Hill, London, England, UK: xxxii + 526 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Polunin, N. (1959) Circumpolar Arctic Flora. Clarendon Press, Oxford, England, UK: xxviii + 514 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Sykes, J.M., Horrill, A.D. & Mountford, M.D. (1983). Use of visual cover assessments as quantitative estimators of some British woodland taxa. Journal of Ecology, 71(2), pp. 437–50, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tutin, T.G., Heywood, V.H., Burges, N.A., Valentine, D.H., Walters, S.M. & Webb, D.A. (1964–1980). Flora Europaea. Cambridge University Press, England, UK: Vol. 1, xxxii + 464 pp., maps; Vol. 2, xxvii + 454 pp., maps; Vol. 3, xxix + 370 pp., maps; Vol. 4, xxix + 505 pp., maps; Vol. 5, xxxvi + 452 pp., maps.Google Scholar
Usher, M.B. (1979). Natural communities of plants and animals in disused quarries. Journal of Environmental Management, 8, pp. 223–36, illustr.Google Scholar