A life and death issue, with a look at the short lives of copepods in our science sections, followed in exploitation by a look at how tunicates may hold the secret of a prolonged life for all of us. In conservation we ask if traditional conservation practice is the best way of protecting the marine ecosystem, and see that anoxic waters don’t stay buried!

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A very successful trip to Lochaline on the West coast of Scotland was enjoyed by ten members of our group. General weather and sea conditions over the four days was on the whole very good.  Based at the Old Post Office in Lochaline we were only a couple of  hundred yards from the access point to a spectacular dive location, the  Hotel Beach Wall. The dive starts off swimming down a very gentle slope of mainly white silica sand with occasional large boulders covered with kelp and sheltering shore crabs and sea stars etc. as the slope gets steeper tube anemones, Cerianthus lloydii  in a variety of colours are very common.  The sandy slope ends quite abruptly as we reach the top of the almost vertical wall which plunges down to a depth of more than one hundred metres.  Just a few of the very common inhabitants on the wall are Tubularia with numerous nudibranchs,  football sea squirts, squat lobsters, feather stars and sponges etc. We  are also able to add a further two animals to our Group’s list of recordings for this dive site, a lumpsucker, Cyclopterus lumpus spotted on a couple of dives and a number of Brachiopods, (lamp shells)  Terebratulina retusa.  Dives also took place at Fiunary Rocks, a typical sea loch slope  further West along the Sound of Mull and on the sea grass beds at Rubha-nan-So’rnagon  in Loch Linnhe. 

Most members of the party spent some time walking in the area, on the shores of Lochaline, to see the carved stones at Kiel and to the East side of the loch to the fossil burn where we were very lucky to see otters.

Many thanks to Jo and Barry for such a well organised trip.

Our diary has just been updated with events for this summer. This includes a series of talks on common marine ecosystems around the UK coastline, plus dive trips and walks.

Lancashire MCS summer diary

No limit to growth? – This is the surprising conclusion from studies on reef ecosystems, where it is found that total productivity continues increasing as the biological diversity on the reef increases. The broader implication for marine conservation management is that it is important to maintain balance across the widest possible diversity of life in the ecosystem.

Otherwise in this issue we see reasons not to be popular – if your a Weddell seal, and your popularity is as a snack for orcas. Also we get a glimpse of the slow lives of deep corals – which have led blameless, if rather uneventful, lives since the times of the Roman emperors, only to be killed by the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. There are no places left on the planet that can claim to being untouched by human activity. We must understand our impact better, and take responsibility for our actions – our ancestors will be able to read the records of our crimes in the sediments of the deep seas…
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