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Seasearch News Updated 11th June 2013
Sign up for Seasearch Courses - going fast! Now is the time to sign up for the remaining Seasearch courses for the year. We always try to run as many courses as possible in the spring and there have been 22 already this year. We are now moving onto the main surveying season so if you do want to join us sign up for one of the remaining courses. They are: Observer Courses
Surveyor Courses
Identification Courses
Other Courses
For contact details for all of the courses go to the Training page.
New sighting of rare southerly nudibranch
Actually it is the second sighting as Seasearchers David Kipling and Sarah Bowen also found it in Cornwall in 2012.
Spring Surveys underway at last The May 18th/19th weekend was a good one for survey diving for some. In Devon Seasearch visited 4 sites east of Plymouth, Blackstone Point, Stoke Point, East Rutts and Prawle Point, with 10m visibility at three of them and a thick mid-water layer of plankton at the fourth. In North Wales Seasearch visited Bardsey Island and there were also dives planned in Poole Bay and West Pembrokeshire. The sea temperature in Devon has finally reached double figures after being a couple of degrees below normal thoughout March, April and the beginning of May. Spring is the best time of year to observe many of the hydroids and the nudibranchs feeding on them. Below are dense oaten pipe hydroids from East Rutts Devon, and a pair of, anemone eating, Aeoilid nudibranchs from Sussex.
pictures by Chris Wood (L) & Neil Watson (R) There are still places available on many of the Seasearch Surveys dives over the summer. See the full list on the Diving page of the site. There are often spaces at the last minute so even if you find the event is currnetly full do ask to be put on the waiting list. We have now received over 200 records from surveys so far in 2012. Most of them come from England (57%), follwed by Wales (14%), Ireland (10%) and the Channel Islands (9%).
Seasearch data for 2012 now online The Seasearch dataset on the National Biodiversity Network has now been updated to include all of the 2012 data collected by our volunteer recorders. The dataset now includes 404,000 records from 9.089 sites and covering 2,752 species.
All the records for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man can be viewed online. At present the NBN is unable to display data from the Channel Islands but we hope that will also be available soon. To see the Seasearch dataset click here
The success story in England is the North Sea coast with a record number of forms from the North East. In fact records from the North East and East make up 37% of the total for England. It's an enormous achievement for Seasearch divers along our North Sea coasts, always considered to be difficult to dive and very under-recorded. 2012 also saw many more tageted surveys, especially in the recommended 127 new Marine Conservation Zones in England, and reports on these are listed below. However the government has only brought forward 31 of the 127 sites and none of those which propose highly protected 'no take' status. A map of the records can be downloaded here and viewed in Google Earth. Just click on the link and it will open if you have Google Earth installed on your computer. Seasearch Forms 2012
Seasearch Spring Newsletter The Seasearch Spring Newsletter is now available and has been circulated to all our mailing list via email. If you don't receive one then please contact Seasearch Administrator Charlotte Coombes seasearch@mcsuk.org with your current email address and we'll add you to future mailings. You can also download the Newsletter here Spring Newsletter
Sea fan anemones can damage sea fans A new Seasearch report has just been published on a six-year photographic monitoring project carried out on the wreck of the Rosehill in Whitsand Bay, Cornwall by Sally Sharrock of Devon Seasearch. The sea fan anemone Amphianthus dohrnii is a BAP species because of its rarity and lives almost exclusively on our two species of sea fan. The report compares pictures of the same sea fan between June 2006 and May 2012 showing how the anemones have affected the fan and caused necrosis leading to fouling and finally breaking off of sections of the colony. The report also looks at the Seasearch records of Amphianthus in South Devon and East Cornwall and concludes that they are ephemeral at most sites, though the cause of the fluctuating population is unknown. The report can be downloaded here: Rosehill Sea Fan Anemone Report
More 2012 Seasearch reports published There are now 23 Seasearch reports for 2012 published all of which can be downloaded from the Achievements page. The latest two are from Kent and Wales: Kent Summary 2012 is a summary of the Seasearch activity in Kent in 2012. Wales Summary 2012 is a summary of all of the Seasearch activity in Wales in 2012 There are 2012 summaries for Northern Ireland, North-East England, Devon and Dorset already on the site and there are more to follow.
Seasearch Training and Qualifications The programme of Observer, Surveyor and Specialist Courses for 2013 is now well underway. Go to the Training page so see the list. There are more in the planning stage which will be added as soon as dates are confirmed. In April and May two volunteers completed their Observer Qualification. They are Kerry Netherway (E) and Andrew Woods (E). New Surveyors in April and May are Cat Wilding (E), Tony O'Callaghan (I), Matthias Biber (W) and Caroline Perry (IOM). Congratulations to them all
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This
rather distinctive nudibranch with black rhinophores and gills was
recordedrecently at Hilsea Point, Devon and has been identified
by Bernard Picton as Cadlina pellucida. Bernard says "Currently
known from Portugal and NW Spain, but certainly never on our side
of the English Channel. Is it another one moving North?" 
The
dataset includes all of the data collected by Seasearch, and some
earlier UCS/MCS surveys, going right back to 1977. The graph shows
how the number of records collected by Seasearch has expanded over
the years and 2012 was our second best year ever, despite the challenging
conditions.
Now
we have all of the data for 2012 logged and entered into the Marine
Recorder database we know that the final tally was 1,861 forms of
all types (Observation, Survey and Sea Fan). Whilst this is 13%
down on the highest figure ever, in 2010. The good news is that
the number of Survey Forms is the highest ever and the proportion
of Survey Forms is a record 43%. Survey Forms typically provide
us with three times as much data as Observation Forms and we have
prioritised getting our volunteer divers to make the transition
from one to the other in the last couple of years. This has been
successful as the figures show.
As
the pie chart shows, almost half of the data comes from England,
though Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man have achieved
well above their size. Northern Ireland has recorded twice as many
forms in 2012 as in any of the last 5 years.
The final picture of the damaged sea fan taken in May 2012
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