Offshore survey of Solan Bank Site of Community Importance

On the 28 October 2014 JNCC will embark on a 14 day survey of Solan Bank Reef Site of Community Importance aboard the MRV Scotia.  Solan Bank Reef is one of the 20 offshore candidate Special Areas of Conservation in UK offshore waters and is located approximately 50km north of Cape Wrath in the north-west of Scotland (see map below).

Map displaying the cSAC boundary and reef feature.

View and download spatial data for this MPA on the JNCC UK MPA interactive map.

The site is designated for Annex I reef, specifically sub-types ‘bedrock’ and ‘stony’ reef. Bedrock outcrops create areas of high topography with linear features, thought to be bedrock joint planes, forming cliffs up to 10m. In areas of bedrock where linear features are not as prominent, bedrock outcrops are smooth and undulating forming features known as roches moutonnées. The reefs are characterised by encrusting fauna, mainly bryozoans and in the shallower areas, encrusting coralline algae. Also present are cup corals, brittlestars, a range of sponges, bryozoans, hydroids, soft coral, jewel anemones, foliose red algaes and kelp.  

On this cruise, we will focus on gathering seabed evidence to inform the development of a 
national indicator of ‘Good Environmental Status’ for sponge and other epifaunal communities (http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-6817) as part of the UK’s obligations under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). The indicator analyses the number of sponges present and their morphologies (body shapes) to assess the state of the seabed communities. 

As the indicator was developed for SCUBA diver surveys, the survey hopes to determine whether this indicator can be adapted for use in deeper waters. The survey team will be using a drop down camera system to collect high definition seabed imagery in order to assess changes in sponge communities in response to natural variables and human-induced pressures. 

Data on environmental parameters which could contribute to sponge community structure (e.g. turbidity, temperature, current flow and direction) will be collected, and imagery data collected will also help improve our understanding of the distribution and extent of Annex I reef in the site and the biological communities associated with them.

Dogger's in the Bank!

According to North Sea legend, there exists a merry elf-like creature called a Klabautermann who helps sailors and fishermen with their duties on ship. While none of us here have actually seen one of these good willed sprites, we must surely have had one on board given how smoothly everything has gone on this trip!

Sailing into the sunset (A. Cunha, JNCC)

All in all it’s been a pretty epic survey; we’ve been operating around the clock for 456 hours, collected samples from more than 400 stations over an area roughly a third the size of Wales, sifted our way through around two thousand litres of sediment and captured over 30 hours of video footage of the seabed. The data we’ve collected will now be processed and analysed back on shore, the results will give us plenty to pore over in the next few months. The outputs from our survey will allow us to get a much better understanding of how the biological communities at Dogger Bank respond to anthropogenic pressures and natural processes, how we can monitor these changes and how different sampling gear can affect your results. 

An Ocean Quahog, Arctica Islandica (A. Cunha, JNCC)

We had an exciting end to our penultimate day shift when we found a huge Arctica islandica in our grab. These bivalved behemoths are really rare and can live for hundreds of years (the oldest recorded, nicknamed ‘Ming’, was thought to be over 500 years old!). After recording its measurements, we returned this fella to the ocean, where it will probably live for many decades to come.

The Day Shift, plus 'floaters'! (A. Cunha, JNCC)

The Night Shift, taken by their camera shy shift lead (P. McIlwaine, Cefas)

To sign off, we’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved in the survey. It’s been a really successful trip, especially as we’ve managed to meet all our main objectives and more to boot. None of this, of course, would have been possible without the skill and professionalism of the officers and crew of the RV Cefas Endeavour as well as the experience and expertise of our partners at Cefas, including Scientist in Charge Dr Sue Ware. 

Stay tuned for future instalments from our next survey later on in the year!

Pick a grab, any grab

For 17 days now, we have been grabbing bits of the Dogger Bank seafloor in order to better understand the habitats and communities that live there.

Today we are entering a new phase of the survey in which we’re going to use 5 different grabs to collect samples from a smaller area within this marine protected area.

The reason behind this extra effort is the need to compare our data with data collected in previous studies and by international colleagues using different grab equipment. Analysis of samples collected from different grabs can give different results. This is thought to be due to the differences in the way these grabs operate as well as their specifications.

Mini Hamon grab being deployed (A. Cunha JNCC)

The mini and large Hamon grabs for example, are effective for sampling fine and coarse sediments and have been widely used in the United Kingdom.

A Shipek going into action (A. Cunha JNCC)

The Shipek grab is smaller and used mainly for sediment particle size analysis; it is better suited for coarser sediments. The Day and Van Veen grabs are good for sampling fine and sandy sediments but are prone to getting stones caught in their jaws which can result in part of the samples being lost.

New grab induction day  (A. Cunha JNCC)

Because the Van Veen grab is a new piece of equipment on board of the Cefas Endeavour, a Risk Assessment  protocol has been created and everyone on board that will eventually use or help using this grab had to participate in a full demonstration of all possible hazards and risks.

The Van Veen being inspected by the Master, the Chief Scientist
and the engineers on board (A. Cunha JNCC).

A Van Veen grab being deployed by crew members  (M. Nelson JNCC)

We hope that the findings from this part of the survey will help us gain an insight into how data collected using different grabs vary and allow us to better compare our results with those collected in other studies at Dogger Bank. 

The Lesser Weever FIsh

The sea has calmed down and we’ve arrived in the final and largest survey area. We’ve continued to encounter a range of interesting species. Dogger Itch is not the only animal which we need to be wary of. In the last few days, we have also encountered the lesser weever fish. A picture of the lesser weever fish accompanied by the words ‘Weever Fish Stings’ was placed on the wall in the wet lab on the first day of the survey to warn the scientists to take care. The lesser weever fish has poisonous spines on its first dorsal fins and gills. Needless to say, we’ve being handling it with extreme care.

Lesser weever fish with its poisonous black dorsal fin.  

We’ve also encountered several crabs including the edible crab (Cancer Pagurus), the flying crab (Liocarcinus holsatus), the toad crab (Hyas coarctatus) and the hermit crab (Pagurus prideaux) with the cloak anemone (Admasia carciniopados). The cloak anemone envelops the hermit crab’s shell and increases the size of the shell. This means that the crab does not need to change its shell as it grows. 

Edible crab (Cancer Pagurus)

Flying crab (Liocarcinus holsatus)

Toad crab (Hyas coarctatus)

Hermit crab (Pagurus prideaux) with the cloak anemone (Admasia carciniopados).

Beware the Dogger itch!

We have now moved into our third survey area on the Dogger Bank and we’re making good progress despite the best efforts of the North Sea weather, which has certainly picked up a bit from what it was.

Sampling the sea floor with the Van Veen grab in more idyllic conditions (S. Pearson, Cefas)

During our sampling so far, we’ve found lots of interesting sea floor animals including several starfish, flatfish such as the lemon sole and dab and various species of crabs and shrimp. We also happened to pick up a few animals that live in the water column above the seabed, including a few little cuttlefish which we couldn’t resist photographing.

The Little Cuttle, Sepiola atlantica (H. Hinchen, JNCC)

Working at sea has its risks, but you might not expect to face much danger handling the innocent looking creature pictured below. This is a bryozoan called Sea Chervil (Alcyonidium diaphanum). Bryozoans are a collection of tiny animals called zooids all living together in a colony. They often resemble plants more than animals and ‘bryozoa’ actually means ‘moss animal’. Each individual zooid looks like a tiny sea anemone, often having a ring of tentacles surrounding its mouth.

The Sea Chervil, Alcyonidium diaphanum, 16cm (A. Cunha, JNCC)

This particular bryozoan is said to cause the dreaded ‘Dogger itch’ when handled by unsuspecting fishermen (or scientists!). The Dogger itch is caused by a hypersensitivity to the sea chervil and can give you a nasty weeping rash which can last for months! As scientists we often like to get up close and personal with the animals that we collect; feeling their textures and looking closely at their characteristics. We’ll certainly all be careful what we touch after handling these specimens though, even with gloves on!

Welcome to Doggerland!

If we were to sample the Dogger Bank SAC a few thousand years ago, we would be better off doing it by foot than on a ship. At that time, the area was dry land and formed a larger landmass which connected Great Britain to Europe known as Doggerland.

Map showing hypothetical extent of Doggerland (c. 8,000 BCE), which provided a land bridge between Great Britain and continental Europe (© Max Naylor)

The landscape would have looked very different from the extensive mass of water we see today; mammoths would be roaming through the tundra, and we might have encountered some humans running after lions with stone spears!

After the last Ice Age, around 8000 BCE, the north-facing coastal area of Doggerland had a coastline of lagoons, saltmarshes, mudflats, and beaches, and inland streams and rivers and marshes, and sometimes lakes. The archaeologists studying the site think that this was probably a rich habitat with human habitation and may have been the richest hunting, fowling and fishing ground in Europe in the Mesolithic period!

The Dogger Bank itself, an upland area of Doggerland, is believed to have remained as an island until at least 5000 BCE. After the end of the final glacial period of the last ice age, rising sea levels gradually reduced it to low-lying islands before its final abandonment, perhaps following a megatsunami caused by the Storegga slide – a submarine landslide off the coast of Norway. Nowadays the shallowest tip of Dogger Bank is below 20 meters of water. It is still a very rich fishing ground mainly for flat fish and sandeel.

A piece of peat with holes made by bivalves retrieved from the Dogger Bank seabed (A. Cunha, JNCC)

Some fishing vessels operating in the area today still occasionally drag up remains of mammoth, lion and other land animals, and even small numbers of prehistoric tools and weapons. This prompted the team to be on the look out for any suspicious objects while going through the benthic samples retrieved from the seafloor, in the hope of finding some interesting archaeology.

Fragments of peat retrieved from the Dogger Bank seabed (A. Cunha, JNCC)

Until now we haven’t been that lucky, although we have been finding little fragments of what we think could be pieces of peat, charcoal and even fossilized trees (although no one on board is an archaeologist!). Maybe we are being too creative but it is exciting to think that we are actually floating over such an amazing place.

Unidentified fragments, possibly charcoal pieces... (A. Cunha, JNCC)

A bird in the hand...

by Becks Hunter

We’ve moved on to our second survey area and have left the tropical conditions behind. Night shift battled through seven hours of sieving in heavy rain under rough conditions. Now is the time to test who really has their sea legs!

Some of our most interesting finds include pogges (Agonus cataphractus) and sea mice (Aphrodita aculeata). These marine critters obviously aren’t actually rodents, but are a species of segmented worm. They are covered by a characteristic ‘fur’ of bristles and chaetae. Some of these are iridescent, giving the sea mouse a blue/green shimmer.

Sea mice, Aphrodita aculeata 

We are finding a lot of hermit crabs as well, including some whose shells have been entirely taken over by Epizoanthus incrustatus, a colonial species related to coral. One larger crab climbed out of his whelk shell and gave us the unusual opportunity to photograph the whole body.

Hermit crab with Epizoanthus incrustatus

A hermit crab outside its home

At 5am this morning, during transit between stations, night shift were called upon to perform a high seas rescue mission. A Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) had flown inside the ship and was stuck in one of the tea rooms. We were able to catch it and take it back outside, although it didn’t seem to be in any rush to leave!

A Chiffchaff infiltrates the lab

Not quite Doctor Doolittle, but close enough