The Essex Naturalist 77
Table 1: A summary of ant species recorded from Essex with their rarity and threat status.
Key for habitat codes:
D = dune; G(a) = acid grassland; G(c) = calcareous grassland; G(gr) = grazing marsh grassland; G(s) =
sparsely vegetated, short, grassland; G(u) = unimproved grassland; H = heathland; H(l) = lichen heath; LS =
landslip; W = woodland; W(a) = ancient woodland.
Essex Rare Species are highlighted in bold to enable ease of comparison with Regionally
Notable species in other counties (e.g. the Dorset Scarce and Yorkshire Rare categories).
The older unimproved grassland and heathland sites where a long history of
sympathetic management has encouraged the development of complex inter-
dependent communities are especially important and are the habitats with the
greatest diversity of ant species. Certainly sites of this kind with eight or more
ant species will be of significance within the county and will constitute a
Significant Assemblage of ant species and sites with twelve or more species are
here defined as constituting an Outstanding Assemblage in the county.