Help!

[badger1992]

hi there, i am new to the forum as i think this could help me with my college work and i was hoping that somebody could help me.

im looking to do some survey work on a lime pit near my house and i was just wondering as to what species of invetebrates that i am likely to find?

thanks

[Fauna]

Hi badger1992...welcome to wab

Question is a bit of a tricky one to answer here mate, your guess would probably be as good as ours. It all depends on where you are in the country and if the site is still being used. If its abandoned, then for how long and has the flora started to take hold. These sort of quarries are fairly hostile environments for many inverts, colonization can take a great length of time... How indepth are going to be, do you need to get to species level or doesn't it matter?

I have just started to take a look at an abandoned one near me, my first look at the site was late last year. I spent just under an 1hr looking about and found the species listed below. The ground is frozen there at the moment so i'm waiting for things to warm up before i start making regular visits.

Androniscus dentiger / Rosy woodlouse
Oniscus asellus / Common shiny woodlouse
Porcellio scaber / Common rough woodlouse
Trichoniscus cf. pusillus / Common pygmy woodlouse
Nebria brevicollis / Ground Beetle
Bembidion stephensii / Ground Beetle
Pterostichus madidus / Ground Beetle
Olisthopus rotundatus / Ground Beetle
Pyramidula rupestris / Rock Snail
Discus rotundatus / Rounded Snail
Oxychilus cellarius / Cellar Snail
Oxychilus alliarius / Garlic Snail
Candidula intersecta / Wrinkled Snail
Tachypodoiulus niger / White-legged Snake-millipede
Lithobius melanops / Centipede
Lithobius variegatus / Centipede
Coelotes atropos? / Spider (yet to be determined)
Megabunus diadema / Harvestman


Hopefully someone else can offer more insight to what i have...but do let us know how you get on. If you get stuck in identifying any, take a photo and post it on Wab, there are plenty of experts on here that will help you out.

[Matt Smith]

In my experience, the list of invertebrate one can record from a site depends on how much time you can devote to doing the identification of the catch. 10 minutes work with a sweep net can generate enough specimens of "tinies" to keep you going for weeks. Best bet is to start with some of the "easy" groups (ie those with good ID keys) and give it a go. To get confident ID's for most invert species you will need to take voucher specimens.

Have fun.

[Fauna]

This is the quarry i'm currently checking out. As you can see it is fairly barren in respect to flora, the majority of my searching here is under rock and scree...




For those Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy buffs, this is where they filmed Planet Vogsphere. I was hoping to find some Jewel Crabs and Silky-coated Gazelles. But i kept getting smacked in the chops evey time i thought of the best place to start looking for them

[Johnny81]

While on the thread, I am producing a management plan for a disused Quarry in Northamptonshire for a piece of university work. Succession is slowly taking hold but most of the scrubby species there is the introduced buddleia!There is also a reasonable size area of a bulrush dominated water table. Can't wait to survey the area in summer months I have a niggle it might be a nice haven for inverts, with possibly some sand martin holes in the raised banks, no invert surveys have been carried out there as far as I am aware, looking forward to a look in the summer.

[badger1992]

thanks a lot everybody, your response was of great help to me but yes as some of you said, it does vary from water to water, there is a large amount of surrounding trees and plants around and various aquatic plants, i shall be doing my survey work on there in the next few weeks anyway so i will post as to how i got on, again many thanks