Promoting survival prospects of rare plants

Summary The distributions of Scottish rare plants are well known and we have a good understanding of the communities and habitats in which they occur. But how do we ensure that populations are maintained or enhanced? The ecological processes that determine current population size and distribution must be understood. We review the type of information from monitoring that is required to assess change in species status and to guide conservation management. Managing for habitats must be the right approach to conserving species, but we need to take careful consideration of the individual requirements of different species. Environments fluctuate at a range of spatial and temporal scales; we review the evidence that rare plant species respond to such fluctuations. We consider that there might be a danger that overprotecting some habitats, by trying to maintain constant ideal management prescriptions, might be putting some species at risk. We believe that conservation managers can resolve the apparent conflicts between management for different species by ensuring environmental variation in space and time.