This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA5) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). A review of the distribution and abundance of divers, grebes and seaduck in the SEA 5 area was carried out by Cork Ecology at the request of the Department of Trade and Industry as part of the production of the SEA 5 Consultation Document. The study area was defined as the east coast of Scotland from the English border north to John O'Groats, including Orkney and Shetland, and the offshore waters in the SEA 5 area. This review considered thirteen species: red-throated diver, black-throated diver, great northern diver, great crested grebe, red-necked grebe, slavonian grebe, scaup, eider, long-tailed duck, common scoter, velvet scoter, goldeneye and red-breasted merganser.

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA7) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change).The class Cephalopoda comprises three major divisions, of which two: Decapoda (squids and cuttlefish) and Octopoda (octopods) are represented in the SEA 7 Area. They are highly developed, but short-lived molluscs with rapid growth rates. They are important elements in marine food webs and interact significantly with marine mammals, seabirds and commercially exploited finfish species. They also represent a promising future fishery resource in terms of market value, abundance and growth potential. At present, only an estimated 10% of exploitable stocks are utilised worldwide. There are six marketable squid species that occur in the SEA 7 Area. These belong to the long-fin (loliginid) and short-fin (Ommastrephid) squids the two most important exploited families of decpods. In the SEA 7 Area, only one species, Loligo forbesi is commercially exploited on a regular basis, although there are significant landings of other species on occasion. The closely related Loligo vulgaris sometimes appears in catches and the small Alloteuthis subulata is thought to be naturally abundant and an important food item in the marine ecosystem. There are other important species represented in the SEA 7 Area. These include cuttlefish, octopods, sepiolids and a number of deep-water species. Most of these are marketable and may be ecologically important. Large fisheries for some of these species, particularly octopods and cuttlefish operate in European waters further south, but they are not currently exploited in the SEA 7 Area.

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.

This report describes fieldwork operations of the North Sea Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA2) Survey, Leg 3 (crests survey) conducted for he Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change) from R/V Vigilance between 14 and 22 June 2001. The survey objectives were to carry out quantitative seabed sampling and seabed photography in SEA2 Survey Area 1 (sand bank / wave study areas, off the Norfolk coast). The report contains a brief description of seabed appearance and epifauna. 82 samples were collected.

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA5) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). Macrofaunal analysis was carried out on sediment samples collected in the Moray Firth between September and October 2003.

Valuable observational data were collected, from remote sea areas in the northeast Atlantic where cetacean observations are not routinely conducted. Marine mammal observations were carried out daily, over a 28 day period in July and August 2005, as part of a geophysical survey on MV Kommandor Jack for the Department of Trade and Industry's (now Department of Energy and Climate Change) Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA7 west of Scotland. This report describes exactly how and where the marine mammal observations were made. It also presents and summarises the 40 sightings that were made during the course of the survey.

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA5) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). 30 harbour seals in Orkney and Shetland and 10 in the Wash were captured and satellite tagged between October 2003 and March 2004. Each seal was tracked for an average of 150 days. As anticipated from initial satellite tagging in St Andrews Bay animals were found to travel much further to forage than previously anticipated. A high degree of individual variation in foraging behaviour of animals was found in Orkney and Shetland. The distance travelled to forage ranged between 5 and 150 km. In the Wash foraging behaviour was more consistent, the majority of foraging occurring between 75 and 120 km from haul-outs. The movement data received from the tags, combined with information on the number of animals counted during aerial surveys at haul-outs have been used to predict at-sea usage of the populations in question.

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). Cephalopods are short-lived molluscs, characterised by rapid growth rates, and are important predators and prey in oceanic and neritic environments. They are active predators at all stages of their life-cycle and generally regarded as opportunistic, taking a wide variety of prey. Cannibalism has been frequently recorded in cephalopod species. Cephalopods also sustain a number of marine top predators such as fish, birds and marine mammals, especially whales. Many species are powerful swimmers and carry out vast feeding and spawning migrations, thus influencing prey and predator communities strongly on a seasonal and regional basis. As cephalopods are important elements in food webs they interact with commercial fisheries of finfish. Evidence exists that fishing pressure has changed ecological conditions and shifts in community structures have occurred with cephalopod stocks slowly replacing predatory fish stocks. Their commercial significance to world fisheries is of relatively recent, but growing, importance. From a commercial point of view, the most important cephalopod species in the SEA6 area is Loligo forbesi, which is landed as a by-catch of the demersal trawl fishery (82 tonnes in 2002). But the species Alloteuthis subulata, although of no commercial value, has an important ecological role in the coastal food webs, since it is the most commonly recorded cephalopod species in the stomach contents of demersal fish in UK waters.

This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA7) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). The SEA7 area includes the west coast of mainland Scotland with its numerous sea lochs, the continental shelf with the Hebridean Islands, the continental slope of the northern Rockall Trough, the Rockall Trough and its seamounts, the Rockall and Hatton Banks and the abyssal depths to the west of Hatton Bank. All these areas, except the abyssal depths support a diverse variety of fisheries using demersal, pelagic and static gears. SEA7 lies within ICES Sub areas VI and XII. Relevant aspects of the biology of 39 species or species groups have been described. Brief descriptions are given of the fishery for each species, including the method of fishing and the long term trends in the landings from each of the management areas are described.

This report describes the processing methods employed for the analysis of the SEA6 biological samples from a range of depths in the Irish Sea collected from SV Kommandor Jack in October 2004 as part of the Department of Trade and Industry's (now Department of Energy and Climate Change) Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA5. . A spreadsheet of data is included.