North Merseyside Local Wildlife Site selection guidelines outline the rules by which Local Wildlife Sites in North Merseyside are selected. These rules include thresholds, some of which are tailored specifically to a taxonomic group. Species that meet those thresholds are considered local conservation priorities ensuring that we maintain an evidence led approach to delivering local… Read More »
8. ODONATA
These guidelines and site selection have been based upon the dragonfly atlas (White, SJ & Smith PH. 2015. The Dragonflies of Lancashire and North Merseyside. Lancashire & Cheshire Fauna Society.)
Od1 Any site which regularly supports a breeding population of ten or more species of dragonfly or damselfly.
Od2 Any site which regularly supports a breeding population of a rare or scarce North Merseyside breeding species
Sites are eligible for selection as a Local Wildlife Site if they meet certain minimum standards as set out in these guidelines. It should be noted that modern approaches to site evaluation for wildlife, including this one, are derived from a series of basic criteria which were established in the publication ‘A Nature Conservation Review’ (Ratcliffe, 1977). The most important of these criteria include rarity and diversity of habitats and/or species, naturalness, fragility and typicalness. They form the basis for the specific habitat and species-related minimum standards used here. Thus Local Wildlife Sites are identified on biological grounds, rather than on planning or
community- based considerations.