Identification

Title

Species point records from 1978-79 SWBSS Upper Bristol Channel sublittoral survey

Abstract

This survey was carried out to describe the range of sublittoral habitats and the communities of plants and animals present adjacent to the coast of the upper Bristol Channel. On the north side, from the east side of Swansea Bay to Llantwit Major and on the south side, at Porlock Bay, Minehead and Watchet. 16 sites were surveyed by diving within 43 km of coastline. All of the sites, except Gore Point on the west side of Porlock Bay, included a very small number of species of algae and animals compared to open coast areas of south-west Britain. Algae were only recorded above Chart Datum level. Animal communities were similar from site to site with stable rock surfaces at most sites dominated by Sabellaria spp. (mostly S. alveolata) and at some sites by Dendrodoa grossularia, Mytilus edulis or Polydora ciliata. A small variety of sponges, hydrozoans and bryozoans were also present in large amounts. Mobile or scoured substrata were characterised by Balanus crenatus and Pomatoceros triqueter. Moving west to east along the coast reveals a gradual reduction in the number of conspicuous species with a sharp reduction across Swansea Bay resulting in highly impoverished communities here. Along the majority of the coast studied, it is suggested that the circalittoral zone extended above the Chart Datum level and that the upward extent of the sublittoral zone, based on the presence of sublittoral algae, extended to about 2.5 m above Chart Datum compared to about 1 m on the open coast. The presence of extensive areas of sand and of sand in suspension during strong tidal flow, is considered to be important in the development of large colonies of Sabellaria alveolata. This and previous surveys emphasise the importance of S. alveolata as a dominant species. Records currently considered sensitive have been removed from this dataset.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

http://data.jncc.gov.uk/data/fb0c4d54-6e89-46da-9c25-3fc5d9ce999f-1978-79-SWBSS-Upper-Bristol-Channel-sublittoral-survey.csv

name: 1978-79-SWBSS-Upper-Bristol-Channel-sublittoral-survey.csv

Unique resource identifier

code

fb0c4d54-6e89-46da-9c25-3fc5d9ce999f

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Additional information source

Hiscock (1979) South-west Britain sublittoral survey. Field survey of sublittoral habitats and species in the upper Bristol Channel (Mid-Glamorgan, South Glamorgan and north Somerset). June 14th 1978 and July 2nd to 5th 1978

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

oceans

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Marine

Marine Recorder

JNCCMNCR10000070

MNCR

Species

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-3.74449187

East bounding longitude

-3.274701341

North bounding latitude

51.49697531

South bounding latitude

51.17923974

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1978-06-14

End position

1979-07-05

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2007-04-25

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