Excursion

22nd of April, 8:00h-19:00h

We will visit the Arrábida Natural Park and some surrounding sites of great interest in terms of biodiversity, endemic vegetation, geology and landscape and human monuments. These sites include the Espichel Cape and Meco Beach. The excursion will cover part of the Setúbal Peninsula, south of Lisbon.

The Cape Espichel, a cape in the west extreme of the Park, is known for its impressive limestone cliffs facing the Atlantic Ocean, the sanctuary complex (Santuário de Nossa Senhora do Cabo Espichel), and the dinosaur fossil trackways, from the Upper Jurassic.

At Meco Beach we will see the dune system and observe the sequence of plant communities from the shoreline towards the inland as a consequence of the changes of the biotope physical characteristics, where the coastal psammophylic communities grow in parallel strips along coastline organizing a microgeosigmetum in which plant populations are not included in a serial logics but represent permanent steps of the vegetation.

The excursion will take the entire day, and will include lunch at a restaurant in the visited area. We will start and arrive at the meeting venue (ISA).

Arrábida Natural Park

The Arrábida Natural Park (16.521 ha) is located on a small limestone massif which falls towards the sea in large cliffs - the Píncaro, on the top of Risco Mountain is 400m high - suggesting a wall before the Atlantic dotted with small coves and hiding small patches of sand.

The vegetation cover is characterized by the presence of Mediterranean flower associations of which we highlight the maquis - sub-woods of the ancient forest - and the garrigue - low shrubland - which represent a relevant botanical set. On the south facing sheltered slopes it acquires an arboreal aspect creating the woods - Vidal, Solitário, Mata Coberta.

Numerous and varied aquatic fauna and flora hide in the adjacent Marine Reserve.

The human occupation is confirmed through pre-historical remains, the seductive Arrábida convent, plantations and popular and erudite architecture assemblies.

Azeitão's Cheese, Setúbal's moscatel and Arrábida's honey are just a few of the flavours this mountain has to offer.

Beautiful views of the sea and a small cove taken right out of a postcard, the Portinho, complete a painting of great landscape value.

          Source: Natural.PT – Discovering the Protected Areas. Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas, I.P.

Serra da Arrábida is a national protected area, classified under the status of ‘Natural Park’. It integrates the national NATURA 2000 site list, both as a special area of conservation (Habitats Directive) and as a special protection area (Birds Directive).

Geologically speaking, this sea-facing small mountain (501 meters above m.s.m.) is a small limestone outcrop, mostly of Jurassic origin. Its dominant soils are derived from hard calcium carbonate rocks, some with dolomitical character. In terms of the bioclimate typology (Rivas-Martinez et al., 2004) it is located on the thermomediterranean, upper sub-humid belt and biogeographically stands as the Arrabidensean Superdistrict (Ribatagan-Sadensean Sector). It shares a large proportion of its flora and vegetation with the larger calcareous unit - Dividing Portuguese Sector - found north of the Tagus River (Costa et al., 1998).

Its natural vegetation, generally well preserved, has a high natural value due to the fact that the majority of the taxa share a paleomediterranean and/or paleotropical origin. This factor, together with a relatively high annual precipitation rate, no hail, and soils originated from dolomitical limestone, determine a vegetation of great richness and originality.

          Source: Costa, J.C., J. Capelo, P. Arsénio, T.M. Henriques. 2005. The Landscape and Plant Communities of Serra da Arrábida. Quercetea. 7: 7-25.

Image credits: César Garcia