Marine Conservation Society: Lancashire area group

Last month’s meeting on Surveying the Piel Channel, by Ron Crosby, drew another big turn out. The Piel Channel is one of the very few satisfactory shore dives along the coasts of Lancashire and Cumbria. Our coastline has very gently sloping muddy bottoms.These make them very susceptible to disturbance from wind or tide, resulting in very poor visibility. It is not that there is no life here – quite the opposite, but it is often dug in and hard to see…

By contrast the tidal race of the Piel channel cuts the boulder-clay sediment to a depth of about 12m within a few metres of the shore. While visibility is still often very poor, the comparatively steep profile means tat all of the life in the bay is compacted into a small area, and a wide range of habitats is very easily accessible.

For more information on the range of organisms found in the Channel, see our surveys page:

Marine life survey of the Piel Channel, Barrow in Furness

A couple of articles over the last few weeks do make interesting and/or disturbing reading: I think it is pretty much a given that for wild fisheries to have much chance of survival they must be managed. In this light recent gene marker studies on fish sales raise both hopes that we can now clearly identify the provenance of a fish on the fishmonger’s counter, and a warning that some existing certification schemes are not working as well as they need to. Farmed fish may be managed, but that also makes them subject to pretty unpleasant management practices, such as the practice of eye-stalk ablation, which apparently speeds maturity of black tiger shrimp…

We start, however, with one of the big stories in the popular press over the last few weeks, the latest estimate of the total number of species on the planet. To be pedantic we should perhaps say eukaryotic species, though the term ‘species’ is not very easy to apply to prokaryotes…
(more…)

The hardest coral on the reef may well be a softie, as much of the rocky structure of these reefs is found to derive from the sclerites from soft corals! This debate over how much support environmental agencies will grow as our economic worries deepen, how high up the scale do you put the environment? Essential for our continued existence on the planet, or jobs/hospitals now (environment later – maybe)? This week DSN reports on the debate in the US in our conservation leader. Our pollution section, however, points out that one of the most damaging aquatic pollutants – nitrogen from fertilisers – can be reduced while saving money and increasing yields…
(more…)

A cracker of crazy stuff from the ocean this issue: Our contribution to shark week this year might be a shark with a hump – or the camel with very sharp teeth… Plus buzzing lobsters, binary snails and when to fix your beach defenses. Perhaps the best news this issue is the partial recovery of the Grand Banks fishing area. White fish stocks had been reduced close to extinction, and this set up feedback loops that resulted in smaller fish and squid taking over, as they ate what few young fish that were born. After over 20 years of ban, however, there are signs that the cod are coming back… Lessons? – Stop fishing before you hit stock bottom (unless you can survive 30 years without work that is)!
(more…)

The coolest story in this issue is the all seeing-eye that sea-urchins apparently have, using light sensitive detectors on the tips of each of their tube feet, which are distributed all around their body! Less good is the prediction of a global marine mass extinction event. Otherwise, a few groups are publishing genetic studies increasing our understanding of how marine organisms biomineralise carbonates. Quite imporant given the expected increase in ocean acidification.

(more…)

This issue we see that tides keep species apart – or at least prevent the different strains of the ubiquitous seaweed Fucus spp. from all merging into one species! We also see that iron rich waters result in changes to benthic communities and get an insight into how sponges form glass skeletons – a feat of materials engineering that has always amazed me. The tone is decidedly more serious in our Fisheries section, with a link to graphics showing just how much our fish stocks have declined over the last century. Actually ‘declined’ is not nearly a strong enough word for it. ‘Wiped out’ would be a little closer to the mark.

(more…)

It has been a while, and there is a lot to go through – so best start with some light browsing! – In Science we’ve got links to a super set of marine life photos, plus an amusing look at cnidaria from the guys at Deep Sea News. The section ends with new takes from molecular biology on the flagella and the mitochondrion – fundamental building blocks of cells.

In conservation we look at attempts to model population dynamics across a patchwork of marine reserves. This kind of understanding is essential for planning effective reserves, as if reserves are too small, or the gaps between them are too large, then they will not protect all of the species within them from over exploitation. This section ends with a look at how well displaced populations survive – as aliens in the Med or the Caribbean, or displaced benthic faunal communities.

Fisheries has an interesting couple of articles on cod fishing in the Baltic – I had full access to the PLoS 1 journal article, and that appeared to say that fisheries, seals and cod could co-habit, though there would be problems. The ScienceDaily headline is a lot more strident, in saying that seals will be the financial ruin of small fishermen. Otherwise there is a paper drawing our attention to the possibility that fisheries and climate may not be independent variables. If this is that case it will make modelling fish stock that bit more challenging…

In fact there is a second link between fisheries and climate change this issue, with news that slow growing fish in the Tasman Sea are being adversely effected by temperature rise – the Tasman Sea has increased in temperature by 2°C in the last 60 years. Thankfully the Weddel Sea has only warmed by 0.6°C, but this still represents an enormous amount of heat entering the Southern Oceans from our warming climate. To ensure there is no silver lining in this issue, we learn that bacteria are the true rain makers.

(more…)

Usually we start the science section with stories from the vertebrates, and work ‘down’, in a blatant piece of species-ism. This time the anemones float to the top, however, with reports of how the corals might have evolved, and the id of one of the chemicals that induces their free-floating larvae to settle down. We end the section with a series of parties with the world’s largest vertebrates.

Fisheries and exploitation has a report about fishermen being paid to collect plastic. Sounds environmentally beneficial? We’re not sure how the collection will work, as while there is a vast amount of plastic waste at sea, is is usually in small fragments and not very concentrated, making for a very energy intensive clean-up. A skimming exercise that would remove small fragments will also remove many of the small invertebrates and plankton that form an essential part of the food chain… It will be interesting to see if there are any benefits from this bit of horse-trading.

(more…)

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!

(more…)

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…
(more…)