2002 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA3 Technical report - Plankton ecology (Addendum to SEA2 report), North Sea

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA3) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change) and has been written as an addendum to the more comprehensive SEA2 document. The two papers give an overview of the phytoplankton and zooplankton community composition in the North Sea and how this has fluctuated through the latter half of the 20th Century in response to environmental change. The study is based on a unique long-term dataset of plankton abundance in the North Atlantic and the North Sea acquired by the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR). The dinoflagellate genus Ceratium dominates the phytoplankton community in the North Sea, but diatoms are also important, especially in the southern part. The normal annual blooms of plankton are discussed, as are harmful algal blooms (HABs), which appear to be on the increase, possibly due to a combination of climatic variability and eutrophication. Among the zooplankton, copepods are particularly important and constitute a major food resource for many commercial fish species, such as cod and herring. Calanus is the dominant copepod genus in the North Atlantic. Other important components of the plankton - meroplankton, picoplankton and megaplankton - are also reviewed. Very small picoplankton (~1 micron in diameter) and much larger gelatinous members of the megaplankton (e.g. jellyfish and ctenophores) are poorly sampled by the CPR. Although the picoplankton represents a sizeable fraction of total primary production, its role in the marine ecosystem is poorly understood.

Simple

Date (Publication)
2002-08-01
Citation identifier
British Geological Survey / BGS_SEA_26
Point of contact
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role

British Geological Survey (BGS)

Paul Henni

offshoredata@bgs.ac.uk

Custodian

Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)

enquiries@decc.gsi.gov.uk

Originator
Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned
Resource format
Name Version

Documents
Keywords

SeaDataNet Parameter Discovery Vocabulary

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

  • Species distribution

SeaVoX Vertical Co-ordinate Coverages
Use limitation

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.

Access constraints
Intellectual property rights
Distance
5  m
Language
English
Topic category
  • Biota
  • Environment
  • Oceans
Title

SeaVoX salt and fresh water body gazetteer
Date (Revision)
2006-01-01
Code
North Sea
N
S
E
W
thumbnail




Begin date
2001-01-01
End date
2001-01-01
Supplemental Information

http://www.offshore-sea.org.uk/site/index.php

Reference system identifier
OGP / urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326
Distribution format
    OnLine resource
    Protocol Linkage Name
    http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/sea/home.html

    Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal
    Hierarchy level
    Dataset
    Statement

    This report was prepared by scientists from the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS) in August 2002 as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme. The Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey provides a unique long-term dataset of plankton abundance in the North Atlantic and North Sea, using ships of opportunity to tow the CPR on regular routes, sampling at a depth of approximately 10m (methodology described in full in Warner and Hays 1994). Each sample represents 18km of tow and approximately 3m3 of filtered seawater. The survey records over 400 taxa of plankton, composed of phytoplankton (plants) and zooplankton (animals) entities, many of which are recorded to species level. It is the only biological survey that can monitor long term changes over broad areas, such as the North Atlantic. The survey began in the North Sea in 1931, with computerised records from 1948 (for this report data were extracted from 1960).

    Metadata

    File identifier
    aba64100-c110-4de3-e044-0003ba6f30bd XML
    Metadata language
    English
    Hierarchy level
    Dataset
    Date stamp
    2011-08-30
    Metadata standard name

    MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard
    Metadata standard version

    Version 2.3.5
    Metadata author
    Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role

    British Geological Survey (BGS)

    Mary Mowat

    offshoredata@bgs.ac.uk

    		Point of contact
     
     

    Overviews

    Spatial extent

    thumbnail

    Keywords



    Provided by

    Share on social sites

    Access to the catalogue