Identification

Title

Habitat point records from 1986 OPRU Shetland fish farm infaunal sediment survey

Abstract

This report describes the macrofauna present in benthic sediment samples taken at three salmon farm cage sites in August 1986. Samples were obtained in cores taken along a 50m transect line stretched out across the seabed from the edge of the cages. At two of the sites, fish cages had been operating for approximately 15 months whilst the third site had only been subjected to fish farm inputs for 4 months. At one of the older cage sites, situated in a very sheltered voe, the muddy sediments supported a low diversity community of which the main components were Capitella capitata and unidentified nematodes. Although apparently stressed, no gradients in community structure attributable to fish farm inputs were discernable. This may have been due to the transect line used not being long enough to include the whole of the gradient from polluted to clean conditions, because diver observations certainly suggested the existence of farm input-related gradients in other more readily visible parameters. At the other two sites, sediments were coarser and more mixed although the seabed at one of these was clearly more exposed to tidal currents than the other. They both supported a diverse infauna; that from the more exposed site numerically dominated by Corophium crassicorne, and that from the more sheltered site by Capitomastus minimus and unidentified oligachaetes. At the more exposed (and most recent) of these sites, the infauna within approximately 5m of the cages had been modified by fish farm inputs, and consisted predominantly of dense populations of Capitella capitata. Similar changes had occurred at the more sheltered of these two farm sites although here they extended out to approximately 15m from the cages.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

http://data.jncc.gov.uk/data/ff95f595-49db-4e8d-952a-3c4f24b2f97f-1986-OPRU-Shetland-fish-farm-infaunal-sediment-survey.csv

name: 1986-OPRU-Shetland-fish-farm-infaunal-sediment-survey.csv

Unique resource identifier

code

ff95f595-49db-4e8d-952a-3c4f24b2f97f

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Additional information source

Dixon (1987) Macrofaunal studies around Shetland fish farms. August 1986.

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

oceans

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Marine

Marine Recorder

JNCCMNCR10000232

Habitat

MNCR

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-1.601268608

East bounding longitude

-1.498343434

North bounding latitude

60.21629767

South bounding latitude

60.21125885

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1986-08-01

End position

1986-08-31

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2001-08-29

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

This survey was extracted from a Marine Recorder snapshot.

Conformity

Data format

name of format

Comma Separated Values

version of format

Unknown

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Open Government Licence v3.0

Limitations on public access

no limitations

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC

email address

data@jncc.gov.uk

responsible party role

custodian

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC

email address

data@jncc.gov.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2018-05-17

Metadata language