Hydrosere Succession in Brueton Park

	This image shows the view towards the centre of the pond from the starting point of our interrupted belt transect.  For saftey reasons, we began sampling where we were confident that we would not risk becoming stranded in deep sediment at the margins of the open water.
Within the open water, aquatic plants can be found such as duckweed and bullrushes.  Some of these are very small in size.  Algae was also observed in the sites where open water was present. This is typical for the initial stages of a hydrosere succession
	The final stage in the hydrosere succession is an oak woodland.  In sites 13-16 small oak trees were present in the shrublayer.  Species diversity should increase towards the woodland, but as the oak trees become established and dominant, species diversity falls since other plants are out-competed for light, space and nutrients.  The height of the canopy at site 20 is approximately 28 metres.

Next Page - Vegetation Surveys