Bearded Stonewort (Chara canescens)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Non-vascular plant (incl. chromists) > stonewort > Stonewort |
| Red List Status: | (Not Relevant) [(not listed)(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Chara canescens |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Desv. & Loisel. |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | (not listed) |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Provisional England VU, Britain VU (Stewart & Lansdown 2021, Stewart 2022). Schedule 8 species. Decreasing and now very rare in the Peterborough area where there have been good populations within the last 30 years. Also 3 presumed to be short-lived sites on east coast. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | In the Peterborough area brickpits it needs fresh clay substrates and disappears within 25 years in large ponds but often within 10 years in smaller ponds. Coastal sites seem also to be temporal without management. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Species has appeared on several occasions in new brickpits in the Peterborough area and in brackish pools near the coast |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 6. Recovery solutions trialled |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Clearance of ponds and creation of new ponds in former sites has had reasonable success rate but populations failing due to lack of ongoing management. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Clearance of ponds in and near remaining sites. Aim is to remove swamp vegetation and to expose fresh clay substrates. Experience in the Peterborough area has shown that even quite limited sections of pond can be scraped and the species can reappear. However, small cleared areas tend to recolonise with swamp much more quickly. Frequently, the species has appeared in newly created ponds in places not known previously but it is not clear if this is re-establishment from buried spores or spores carried around by birds.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites: Orton Pit (Cambs), Dogsthorpe Star Pit (Cambs), King's Dyke Pit (Cambs), Oare Marshes (Kent), Gibraltar Point (Lincs), Saltholme (Teeside)
Comments: Previous management in Peterborough Brickpits has shown a good degree of reappearance of populations following clearance. Needs in east coast sites are less well known
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Survey of known populations is needed to assess the current state of populations, their stability and their management needs. This also needs to include a wider survey of potentially suitable brackish habitats along the east coast.
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites: Focussed around known sites (Orton Pit (Cambs), Dogsthorpe Star Pit (Cambs), King's Dyke Pit (Cambs), Oare Marshes (Kent), Gibraltar Point (Lincs), Saltholme (Teeside)) but more extensive survey along the east coast needed.
Comments: Also addresses SRC steps 4 & 5. Current state of populations are poorly known and thought to be in a poor state in the Peterborough area. Stability of coastal populations needs further study to assess if they are temporal occurrences or any possibility of maintenance as permanent populations. A wider survey of potentially suitable brackish habitats along the east coast is needed because, although it is thought that the recent appearances on the east coast are colonisation from the Baltic Sea, it is possible that there is an unknown source population established somewhere on the English coast.
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Habitat creation in the areas near existing populations. In the Peterborough area, this species has moved around as different areas have been worked for brick clay. Brickworking is very much reduced in recent years (and mainly in the Whittlesey area) with the result that new resource habitat is not been created while successional changes have reduced occurrence in previous sites as they mature. Creation of habitats, even if of temporary duration, would considerably help build up the population. On the English coast, the creation of brackish habitats as a result of managed coastal retreat could create good habitat and its appearance in three sites in recent years suggests that it has the ability to exploit such situations, even if only temporarily.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Landscape/catchment/marine management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 20 sites
High priority sites: Peterborough area Brickpits. Managed retreat areas on east coast
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.