Identification

Title

Species point records from 1989 MNCR Mull of Galloway/Auchencairn littoral survey

Abstract

The Solway Firth straddles the western border between Scotland and England, the southern shores lying in Cumbria, the northern shores in Dumfries and Galloway. The shores contrast with the predominantly sedimentary Cumbrian shores to the south and the fiordic coast of western Scotland to the north, with shores of mixed sedimentary and igneous boulders, sedimentary and igneous bedrock, and a range of clean mobile sands and less wave-exposed silty sands, adjacent to shallow water. The coastline of the area are largely unspoilt and natural, backed by farmland which is predominantly used as pasture grassland for dairying. 18 sites were surveyed on the open coast, frpm both rocky and sedimentary substrata and from these sites 13 habitat types were identified. Outer coasts were dominated by boulder and cobble substrata with occasional outcroppings of bedrock. Areas of mobile wave-exposed sand occurred around Luce Bay and on the lower shore at many sites. In more sheltered conditions boulders and cobbles were still the predominant hard substratum, with similar communities to those of the open coast. However sedimentary communities were richer in the more stable fine sand and silts, with a range of bivalves and polychaetes occurring. Beware! Infauna has been put in epifauna window Habitat diversity on the north coast of the outer Solway is low, though a more diverse range of habitats and a greater number of species was found than on the Cumbrian coast. Rocky substrata were present in greater quantity and the stability and finer particle size of sheltered sediment flats encouraged the development of richer infaunal communities than are present in the adjacent inlets of the Cumbrian coast. An assessment of the scientific interest and nature conservation importance of the habitats, communities and species is given. Records currently considered sensitive have been removed from this dataset.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

http://data.jncc.gov.uk/data/1f2c4e38-bfe7-4a22-a470-85dd228ce915-1989-MNCR-Mull-of-Galloway-Auchencairn-littoral-survey.csv

name: 1989-MNCR-Mull-of-Galloway-Auchencairn-littoral-survey.csv

Unique resource identifier

code

1f2c4e38-bfe7-4a22-a470-85dd228ce915

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Additional information source

Covey (1990) Littoral survey of the north coast of the outer Solway (Mull of Galloway to Auchencairn).

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

oceans

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Marine

Marine Recorder

JNCCMNCR10000016

MNCR

Species

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-4.944010675

East bounding longitude

-3.867326881

North bounding latitude

54.8816857

South bounding latitude

54.63739051

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1989-09-14

End position

1989-09-19

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

eng