2005 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA6 Technical Report - Plankton Ecology of the Irish Sea
This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA6) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). This report summarises information on the ecology of planktonic species found in the SEA6 area. The Irish Sea is very diverse not only in the physical-chemical regimes operating upon it, but in the ecology of planktonic organisms found there. Data on the nutrient chemistry of the Irish Sea shows that the eastern Irish Sea is more heavily impacted by nutrients owing to freshwater run-off from land, which is far greater than in the western Irish Sea. Nutrients increased from the 1950's to the 1980's after which time the concentrations have levelled off and in some case declined. The phytoplankton biomass appears to have mirrored the influence of the nutrients both in time and space. Highest biomass (inferred from chlorophyll analysis) is generally found in regions of low salinity and tends to be greatest in the eastern Irish Sea. The phytoplankton community has also been shown to vary throughout the seasons and also within different regions or 'ecohydrodynamic' domains of the Irish Sea. The zooplankton community of the Irish Sea has also undergone significant change over the last thirty or so years. The most noticeable of these changes being a significant decrease in abundance of most of the species recorded. Some species distributions and abundances have been shown to be influenced by climate and it is highly likely that other species of plankton in the Irish Sea are also affected in this way. Climate, or more specifically the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), certainly has a major impact upon the physical-chemical environment of the region and this has a direct influence upon the ecology of planktonic organisms found in the Irish Sea.
dataset
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/sea/home.html
name: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal
description: The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change SEA process. The site is run and managed by BGS on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Many files can be downloaded directly from this website. Those that are too large to download can be ordered via the website for postal delivery from BGS.
function: download
BGS_SEA_96
British Geological Survey
eng
OGP
urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326
http://www.offshore-sea.org.uk/site/index.php
biota
environment
oceans
revision
2011-03-25
Species distribution
publication
2008-06-01
publication
2008-06-01
-6
-4
55.3
51.7
revision
2006-01-01
2005-01-01
2005-01-01
publication
2005-01-01
notPlanned
The report was prepared by K. Kennington and W Ll. Rowlands of the Port Erin Marine Laboratory, University of Liverpool as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme. To carry out this report a variety of data has been used ranging from the historical data sets of Johnson et al. (1924), to present day studies. Much data was obtained from the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Oceanic Science (SAHFOS), using their Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) data. However, although over 4000 data points were obtained from CPR data in the Irish Sea some regions of SEA area 6 were not extensively covered. It is suggested that care is taken while studying these figures as many of the patterns observed in the north-eastern Irish Sea are obtained from interpolation and not actual values. Other sources of information include data from the Port Erin Marine Laboratory's long-term Cypris monitoring station (1954-2005), and a comprehensive zooplankton data set from Dr. R.D.M. Nash (unpublished data) spanning the last decade. To compliment these records, a wide range of scientific literature was also used to fill as many gaps in data as possible. These sources of information give a relatively comprehensive review of plankton ecology in the Irish Sea.
The SEAs data were produced as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme; Crown Copyright, all rights reserved. The DECC SEA must be acknowledged in any maps or publications that make use of the data. All the data files are freely available to the public. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the SEA process. The site is run and managed by BGS on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Many files can be downloaded directly from this website. Those that are too large to download can be ordered via the website for postal delivery from BGS. BGS (NERC) has been contracted by DECC to publish SEA datasets on its behalf. All intellectual property rights (including , without limitation, copyrights, database rights and all other rights which subsist or may at any time in the future subsist in the Dataset(s)) in the Dataset(s) ('Intellectual Property Rights') are owned by DECC (formerly the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform). BGS has been authorised by DECC to use SEA datasets for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit basis'. BGS has been authorised by DECC to pass on SEA datasets to third parties so that they can use them for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit' basis.
British Geological Survey (BGS)
Murchison House, West Mains Road
Edinburgh
EH9 3LA
UK
+44 (0)131 667 1000
custodian
Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)
Admiralty Way
London
SW1A 2HD
UK
+44 0300 060 4000
+44 (0) 1823 284077
originator
British Geological Survey (BGS)
+44 (0)131 667 1000
+44 (0)131 668 4140
pointOfContact
2011-08-30