Within a year or two of the rejuvenation management, i.e. scraping the vegetation from the dune slack surface, the bare sand is recolonised by species mostly associated with the successionally-young stage of dune slack development. However, as this recolonisation involves secondary, and not primary, succession, some of the species associated with the vegetation that was removed persist, either as surviving plants or a seedlings regenerating from the seedbank. As such, the open species-rich phase of dune slack developments tends to close up more rapidly than would be the case with primary succession. Also, the species composition of the recolonised rejuvenated slacks differs when compared with the species composition of successionally-young dune slack vegetation arising as a result of primary colonisation, notably in the absence of mosses and thalloid liverworts, but also in the absence of variegated horsetail (Equisetum variegatum).
