Seasearch Achievements

Seasearch data is made available in three ways:

1. Survey reports - either in summary form or full reports. All of the Summary Reports and most of the recent Full Reports can be downloaded from this site

2. On the National Biodiversity Network website

3. In Marine Recorder format

ANNUAL REPORTS 2007 & 2008

To view and download an 8 page illustrated summary of our activities in 2007 and 2008 click one of the following links:

Seasearch Annual Report 2007

Seasearch Annual Report 2008

SURVEY REPORTS

Seasearch Summary Reports are illustrated reports of individual surveys which can be downloaded from this site in PDF format. They include a summary of the surveys undertaken and of the findings and include maps/charts and a summary list of species recorded. The 100+ summary reports currently available are shown on the map and listed below (in date order - the newest reports are at the end of the list). Just click on the report name to access it:

Full Reports have been prepared for the following Seasearch and MCS surveys. Earlier reports are only available in paper format on request (or CD where shown). A charge will be made for supplying any of these reports to cover their preparation and copying. The later reports in blue text can be downloaded below.

NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY NETWORK

www.searchnbn.net

All of the Seasearch data, and data from earlier Marine Conservation Society surveys, is available to use and download from the National Biodiversity network website. Data can be searched for by species or by grid square and you can choose to see just the Seasearch data or data from all of the providers - In terms of marine data this means mainly Marine Nature Conservation Review and MarLIN data.

All of the Seasearch data up to and including 2008 is now available on the website. We are currently entering the data for 2009 which should be available on line in early April.

MARINE RECORDER

All of the data from Seasearch surveys is being entered into Marine Recorder, the database used by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and all of the government conservation agencies and most local record centres. This data is available on request to any Marine Recorder user though a charge may be made for its provision. The data can be for a single survey or a group of surveys and summary information can also be provided in database or spreadsheet format in a number of Marine Recorder pre-determined 'snapshot' tables.

DATA COLLECTED

The data is supplied on Seasearch survey forms. The graph shows the great increase in recording effort since 2000 with the 2005 data being almost twice that of any previous year. Subsequently the level of information has been maintained and the proportion of 'higher value' Survey forms has increased. There was a further big increasing in recording in 2009 with 40% more records received than in 2008, itself a records year.

Seasearch data for 2009

By the end of January 2010 a record 2,032 forms had been submitted from dives carried out in 2009 and the summaries recorded. These are listed below.

The map to the right shows where the 2009 records have come from.

You can now view a summary of the Seasearch data for 2007 and 2008 in Google Earth

If you have Google Earth installed on your computer clicking on the link below will open Google Earth and show locations for all of the Seasearch 2007 and 2008 forms received by the end of September. Click on a point and you will see the date, type of form, the recorder and any comments on special features of the dive.

Seasearch 2007 Google Earth file

Seasearch 2008 Google Earth file

You can also view the 2009 data recorded up to September 2009

Seasearch 2009 Google Earth file

If you don't already have Google Earth on your computer you can download it for free from Google.

The Seasearch Biotope Key

During 2007 Seasearch undertook an exercise to attach JNCC biotope codes to Seasearch SurveyData. This demonstrated the difficulties of using the biotope codes as they currently stand. A document was produced and tested to assist in the allocation of Biotopes and can be downloaded below. In addition this work led to the revision of the Seasearch Survey Form and Guidance and a radical change in the Seasearch Surveyor Course in spring 2008.

Seasearch Biotope Key - December 2007

This work was carried out under contract to the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and a copy of the report can be downloaded.

JNCC Biotope Report - December 2007

We have continued to work on biotope allocation and for the 2008 data have trialled a simplified approach which we have called the Seasearch Rough Guide to Biotopes. This has enabled us to biotope code 80% of the 2008 Survey Form records.

Conservation Outcomes

No Take zone for Lamlash Bay, Arran

In September 2008 the Scottish Government created Scotland’s first ‘No-Take Zone’ in Lamlash Bay on the Isle of Arran. All fishing within the specified area is banned while a scientific trial will be carried out to investigate the fishery and bio-diversity benefits of leaving the seabed to regenerate naturally without any disturbance.

Seasearch evidence gathered by COAST divers helped provide the underpinning evidence for the proposals for Lamlash Bay.

Mobile Gear Ban in Lyme Bay

Seasearch data on the damage caused to pink sea fans by scallop dredging in Lyme Bay has contributed to the evidence on which a decision was taken in August 2008 to ban mobile fishing gear in 10% of the bay, including all of the rocky reef areas. Seasearch is taking part in the monitoring following the ban.

North Wales Special Areas of Conservation

In North Wales Seasearch data was used by the Countryside Council for Wales to help identify reef areas for inclusion in Special Areas of Conservation. The map below includes Seasearch data from a range of sites over a period of time.

Sussex Areas of Marine Conservation Importance

Seasearch information has been used to identify Marine Sites of Nature Conservation Importance in Sussex - designated by the County and City Councils and supported by local marine user groups. The location of the first 12 sites, designated in 1996, is shown in the map below. A second tranche of sites is to be designated as a result of further Seasearch studies.

Arran pipeline diverted

The Arran COAST group have used Seasearch to gather information about habitats and species in Lamlash Bay, Arran. COAST divers completed 42 forms in 2004 from a variety of sites where they discovered a 4km long eelgrass bed – a biodiversity action plan habitat
and also found one of the healthiest maerl beds in the Clyde estuary. The information they were able to provide ensured that a pipeline which would have gone through the maerl bed was moved to a less sensitive location.

photos by Howard Wood

Biodiversity Outcomes

Seasearch records and surveys have led to the identification of a number of species new to Britain and Ireland or the areas in which they were found:

A colony of mantis shrimps, rarely seen by divers, was discovered in North Wales on a Seasearch dive. This has led to inclusion in a Special Area of Conservation and more detailed studies of the area.

The rare deep water brittlestar Asteronyx loveni, previously known only from sites more than 100m deep, was discovered on a Seasearch dive in Loch Torridon.

Jewel anemones, Corynactis viridis, were recorded from the Farne Islands, Northumberland, in 2005 - the first record for the North Sea. In 2007 a crawfish, Palinurus elephas, was found in the same area and another at St Abbs in 2008. These are new records for this part of the North Sea.

The red or Portuguese blenny, Parablennius ruber, has been recently recognised from a number of sites on the west coasts of Scotland, Ireland and in the Isles of Scilly. many of the records come from Seasearch dives. It is a new addition to the UK and Ireland marine fauna. In 2007 a related species, the striped blenny, Parablennius rouxi, was seen and photographed in south Devon. This is normally a Mediterranean species. The black faced blenny, Tritperygion deleasi, first recorded in England in Dorset in the 1970s is now regularly found in south Devon and there are also Seasearch records from south Cornwall.

Red blenny (left) photo Chris Wood: Striped blenny (right) photo Dawn Watson

Two new nudibranchs (sea slugs) for UK waters have been discovered on Seasearch dives in the south-west. Both are known from Portugal but these are the first records for Britain and Ireland. Discodoris rosi was found in the isles of Scilly during a Seasearch survey in 2008, whilst Trapania tartanella was found at The Manacles (Cornwall) in 2007.

Discodoris rosi (left) photographed by John Ives& Trapania tartanella (right) photographed by David Kipling

The anemone prawn, Periclimenes sagitiffer, occurs commonly in the tentacles of snakelocks anemones in the Channel Islands and to the south. This is the first record of one on the northern side of the English Channel, from Swanage in 2007. There is a report of a subsequent survey in 2008 amongst the summary survey reports above.

photo Matt Doggett

Biodiversity Action Plan species and habitats

Seasearch has specifically targeted research on two species on the government's Biodiversity Action Plan lists, the Pink sea fan, Eunicella verrucosa, and the Sea fan anemone, Amphianthus dohrnii, which lives on it. The work has expanded the known range for sea fans, both to the north in Pembrokeshire and to the east in Dorset. It has also identified where the densest populations are and where the sea fans are and are not in good condition. The Sea fan anemone has been shown to be very rare indeed only being found at a small number of sites between Lands End and Plymouth, with the largest concentration in The Manacles.

Local sea fan surveys have also taken place in Cornwall, Devon and Dorset and a number of reports have been produced all of which can be downloaded from the list of reports above.

Continuing surveys are taking place on two wrecks in Whitsand Bay. On the Rosehill we are recording the numbers and location of sea fan anemones on specific sea fan colonies and on the Scylla we are recording the growth rates of sea fans which first appeared on the wreck in 2007.

The fan mussel, Atrina fragilis, the UK's largest mollusc, has also been the subject of dedicated MCS/Seasearch surveys in Devon, South Wales and the west of Scotland. A colony was discovered and recorded in 2004 in Plymouth Sound.

The pictures below show a living fanshell, with sea squirts and a brittle star on the exposed part of the shell (Photo: Sally Sharrock). To the right is the dead shell showing its damaged top to the left.

Negotiations are taking place with a view to preventing further damage to this population of rare shells by banning anchoring in the area where they are found.

Elsewhere single living shells have been recorded from Skye and Rathlin Island, and 4 living shells have been found intertidally in Salcombe.

The sunset cup-coral, Leptopsammia pruvoti, is known in Britain and Ireland only from Lundy, the Isles of Scilly, Plymouth, Lyme Bay and Sark. All of the known sites are regularly visited by Seasearch surveys to monitor the condition of the populations. Specific studies have taken place on Lundy and the Plymouth Drop Off where we are plotting the exact extent of the sunset coral populations. New sites for sunset corals have been discovered in the Isle of Scilly in 2007, 2008 and 2009..

sunset corals at Lundy

The fireworks anemone, Pachycerianthus multiplicatus, is a recent addition to the BAP species lists. Seasearch surveys have been taking place at Loch Shira and Loch Fyne to assess the current status of the populations. Reports are available to download above.

Eelgrass beds, Zostera marina, occur in shallow waters and are easily damaged by physical impact from developments and moorings. Seasearch has surveyed the extent and condition of eelgrass beds in Northern Ireland, North and West Wales, Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Plymouth, the Isle of Wight and Alderney, Channel Islands. The surveys are an important contribution to the monitoring of this fragile habitat.

Eeelgrass bed in Alderney, Channel Islands: photo Chris Wood