Species Action Framework

Glossary of terms

Adaptive management:
Management that responds to new information as it becomes available from monitoring.

Conservation status:
Summarises the distribution and abundance of a species within a geographical area. It is usually defined in terms of population trends (and sometimes dynamics such as breeding success), distribution trends and may include an assessment of habitat and current threats.

Ecosystem:
A community of plants and animals interacting with each other and with their environment.

Endemic species:
A species of animal or plant confined to a particular region or island and having, so far as is known, originated there.

Native species:
A species occurring naturally in an area (its natural range), in this case Scotland.

Natural range:
The geographic area over which a species is or was present in the absence of human intervention, i.e. where it is a natural part of the ecosystem having colonised or evolved alongside other native species. The historical natural range of a species is often difficult to establish and depends on historical records. A species’ natural range may change in time in response to environmental change such as in climate.

Non-native species:
Refers to a species introduced (i.e. by human action) outside its natural range. We use this term to refer particularly to those that were introduced to Scotland since around 1500. Species that came to Scotland as a result of human activities before 1500 are now considered part of our natural heritage, e.g. brown hare and many arable ‘weeds’. This threshold is only indicative, and often there is uncertainty as to when and how species arrived in this country. Species that are native to Britain are not necessarily native to the whole country, e.g. hedgehogs are not native to the Western Isles but were introduced during the last century. ‘Invasive’ non-native species are those whose introduction threaten biodiversity.

Population:
A group of organisms of the same species occupying a particular geographic region.

Reintroduction:
The deliberate release of a living organism into the wild in an area (e.g. country, region, site) that was once part of its natural range but from which it has become extinct.

Species:
A group of actually or potentially interbreeding populations that can successfully produce viable, fertile offspring. The species is the basic level of taxonomy, i.e. the naming and classification of plants and animals. In this document, ‘species’ can encompass subspecies where there is a reason to consider conservation at the level of subspecies, e.g. the slender Scotch burnet moth Zygaena loti scotica.

Translocation:
A general term for the transfer, by people, of any organism from one place to another.