Biodiversity Character Areas have been developed by DERC to sit alongside Landscape Character Areas. They describe the landscape type and land use, main semi-natural habitats present and highlight species, species assemblages and features of particular interest.
Click here for a list of Key Species
This area occupies the area south of Poole Harbour and the River Frome overlying the acid soils of the Poole Formation and London Clays north of the Purbeck Ridge. There are several of the largest continuous areas of lowland heathland remaining in Dorset which is of high international importance and supports a rich flora and fauna with many rare and scarce species.
Historically the heaths extended from East Lulworth to Studland broken only by the narrow Corfe River valley. While suffering some losses through encroachment at the edges by conversion to agricultural land, plus on drier areas the planting of conifer trees particularly at Arne from Wytch to Newtown Heath and around the fringes of the MoD Ranges at Lulworth, recent initiatives have reversed these to some extent with the removal of significant areas pine plantation and taking land out of intensive agriculture and allowing it to revert to heathland.
Heathland is a landscape type which includes many other habitats and in Purbeck there are internationally important valley mires dominated Sphagnum mosses with many specialist invertebrates and plants some of which are now very rare in lowland Britain. Strongly associated with the heathlands are summer-parched acid grasslands some of which has formed on former arable land being restored to heath. These are particularly rich in early flowering annual plants and carry a nationally important flora with populations of Smooth Cat’s-ear, Hoary Cinquefoil and Upright Chickweed. These grasslands have an abundance of flowers that provide a pollen and nectar source for many invertebrates that nest in the sandy ground.
Fringing the Poole Formation is a narrow band of London Clay which has richer soils and, historically where most settlements and agriculture were, with the heaths is used as common grazing land. These areas are quite wooded in places including some ancient woodland and in places there are significant numbers of veteran trees that provide habitat for bats, fungi, lichens and saproxylic invertebrates. Much of the remaining grassland is improved but important areas of species-rich neutral grassland, fen-meadow and rush-pasture remain within the MoD Ranges at Lulworth.
On the south side of the River Frome the floodplain retains areas of inundated and slightly brackish grassland with a system ditch with interesting communities of wetland invertebrates and plants. At The Moors the sea-wall will not be repaired and the land behind will gradually return to more brackish conditions.
The Purbeck Heaths BCA includes the Purbeck Heaths (lowland heathland), Lulworth Wooded Pasture (rolling wooded pasture), Rempstone Wooded Pasture (rolling wooded pasture) and Frome Valley Pasture (valley pasture) Landscape Character Areas and covers 9,474 hectares.
Summary of Key Features
- Internationally important lowland heathland and associated valley mires with a very rich flora and fauna including many nationally rare and scarce species
- Nationally important summer-parched, sandy acid grasslands rich in small annual flowering plants
- Large area of acidic dune heath with associated mobile dunes and seasonally flooded dune slacks at Studland
- Small but important areas of woodland and wood-pasture fringing the heaths with a significant number of veteran trees
- Nationally important areas of semi-natural neutral grassland and rush-pasture on the Lulworth Ranges and in the Corfe River valley
- Grazing marsh grassland and associated ditches with a rich flora and fauna in the Frome Valley between Stoborough and The Moors
Issues:
- Lack of appropriate grazing to maintain the grassland habitats and species they support
- Continuing decline of farmland birds and arable flora
- Loss of field and pasture trees and lack of replacement
- Enrichment of watercourses
Species assemblages of importance within the BCA
- Invertebrates of bare ground on sandy & clayey heaths
- Invertebrates of heathland edge & marginal habitats
- Invertebrates of wet heaths
- Invertebrates of valley mires
- Plants of heathland tracks
- Plants of wet heath
- Plants of open valley mires
- Plants of acid pools & ponds
- Bryophytes of valley mires
- Lichens of open slow-succession heaths
- Fungi of valley mires
- Dragonflies & damselflies of mires and acid pools
- Heathland birds
- Plants of rush-pastures & fen-meadows
- Plants of ancient and unimproved grasslands
- Plants of parched acid grassland
- Fungi of ancient and unimproved grasslands
- Lichens of old growth woodland & wood-pasture
- Lichens of veteran trees in parklands & pastures
- Fungi of old growth woodland & wood-pasture
- Fungi of wet woodland
- Saproxylic invertebrates associated with veteran trees and dead wood features
- Plants of pioneer, mobile & semi-fixed sand dunes
- Lichens of acid dune heaths
- Fungi of acid sand dunes
- Invertebrates of acid sand dunes
- Plants of grazing marsh ditches & ditch margins
- Invertebrates of ponds & old clay workings
Dorset Environmental Records Centre 