A series of North Sea benthos surveys with trawl and headline camera

Author(s):  
M. F. Dyer ◽  
W. G. Fry ◽  
P. D. Fry ◽  
G. J. Cranmer

During a series of North Sea demersal fish surveys, a headline camera was used to photograph the sea-bed at intervals of 1 min, throughout the duration of 60 min trawls. A successful series of underwater photographs were obtained at 119 stations throughout the North Sea. In addition, the benthos caught at 317 stations was recorded.A total of ca. 30 species could be identified on the underwater photographs, and of these ten species were sufficiently common or locally abundant for estimates of local population densities to be made. Distributions throughout the North Sea based on specimens trawled and specimens photographed were compared.

Author(s):  
G. J. Cranmer ◽  
M. F. Dyer ◽  
P. D. Fry

A further series of North Sea demersal fish surveys was carried out during the summers of 1981 and 1982. The remote headline camera was used and the benthos trawled was recorded. At stations of special biological interest the camera was adjusted to take from one to three frames per minute throughout the 1 h duration of the trawl. A successful series of underwater photographs were obtained at 95 stations throughout the North Sea.


1966 ◽  
Vol 181 (1) ◽  
pp. 848-875 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. S. Avery

The origins of offshore drilling work and the development of structures used at sea are traced. Comparison of the various types illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of each. Tables show the numbers in operation, being built, and the apparent liability of each type to damage. Typical bore-hole structures are illustrated, the need for undersea well-heads explained and their development into a sea-bed completion is discussed. Much more research is necessary before this can be considered a practical proposition. The design of drilling barge equipment is compared with typical land rigs and the development of drilling equipment, including the sophisticated electric drive and turbo-drill, discussed. Rigs in various types of barge are compared. Fire precautions and other safety equipment are described. The problems associated with control by the driller lead to complications of motive power layout. The lecture describes in some detail the design of the semi-submersible drilling barge Sea Quest, illustrates the weight problems and their effect on floating stability and indicates the need for management decisions on the degree of resistance to damage. This is measured by the variable deck load of drilling equipment that can be held on board and the degree of weather deterioration that can be tolerated before disengaging the drill from the hole. The need for, and extent of, diving is discussed, with some comparison between diving vehicles. Weather too is an essential factor of work in the North Sea and both pre-surveys and day-to-day reporting are described.


2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon P. R. Greenstreet ◽  
Helen M. Fraser ◽  
Stuart I. Rogers ◽  
Verena M. Trenkel ◽  
Stephen D. Simpson ◽  
...  

Abstract Greenstreet, S. P. R., Fraser, H. M., Rogers, S. I., Trenkel, V. M., Simpson, S. D., and Pinnegar, J. K. 2012. Redundancy in metrics describing the composition, structure, and functioning of the North Sea demersal fish community. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: 8–22. Broader ecosystem management objectives for North Sea demersal fish currently focus on restoring community size structure. However, most policy drivers explicitly concentrate on restoring and conserving biodiversity, and it has not yet been established that simply restoring demersal fish size composition will be sufficient to reverse declines in biodiversity and ensure a generally healthy community. If different aspects of community composition, structure, and function vary independently, then to monitor all aspects of community general health will require application of a suite of metrics. This assumes low redundancy among the metrics used in any such suite and implies that addressing biodiversity issues specifically will require explicit management objectives for particular biodiversity metrics. This issue of metric redundancy is addressed, and 15 metrics covering five main attributes of community composition, structure, and function are applied to groundfish survey data. Factor analysis suggested a new interpretation of the metric information and indicated that a minimum suite of seven metrics was necessary to ensure that all changes in the general health of the North Sea demersal fish community were monitored properly. Covariance among size-based and species-diversity metrics was low, implying that restoration of community size structure would not necessarily reverse declines in species diversity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (5) ◽  
pp. 1772-1786 ◽  
Author(s):  
A D Rijnsdorp ◽  
J G Hiddink ◽  
P D van Denderen ◽  
N T Hintzen ◽  
O R Eigaard ◽  
...  

Abstract Fisheries using bottom trawls are the most widespread source of anthropogenic physical disturbance to seafloor habitats. To mitigate such disturbances, the development of fisheries-, conservation-, and ecosystem-based management strategies requires the assessment of the impact of bottom trawling on the state of benthic biota. We explore a quantitative and mechanistic framework to assess trawling impact. Pressure and impact indicators that provide a continuous pressure–response curve are estimated at a spatial resolution of 1 × 1 min latitude and longitude (∼2 km2) using three methods: L1 estimates the proportion of the community with a life span exceeding the time interval between trawling events; L2 estimates the decrease in median longevity in response to trawling; and population dynamic (PD) estimates the decrease in biomass in response to trawling and the recovery time. Although impact scores are correlated, PD has the best performance over a broad range of trawling intensities. Using the framework in a trawling impact assessment of ten métiers in the North Sea shows that muddy habitats are impacted the most and coarse habitats are impacted the least. Otter trawling for crustaceans has the highest impact, followed by otter trawling for demersal fish and beam trawling for flatfish and flyshooting. Beam trawling for brown shrimps, otter trawling for industrial fish, and dredging for molluscs have the lowest impact. Trawling is highly aggregated in core fishing grounds where the status of the seafloor is low but the catch per unit of effort (CPUE) per unit of impact is high, in contrast to peripheral grounds, where CPUE per unit of impact is low.


2016 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph D. Rummel ◽  
Martin G.J. Löder ◽  
Nicolai F. Fricke ◽  
Thomas Lang ◽  
Eva-Maria Griebeler ◽  
...  

2005 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 847-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Heath

Abstract North Sea environmental and biological data were analysed to examine 30-year changes in production and consumption in the fish foodweb. The analysis revealed that the demand for secondary production placed on the ecosystem by fish declined from approximately 20 g C m−2 y−1 in the 1970s to 16 g C m−2 y−1 in the 1990s. Over the same period, the proportion of demand provided by zooplankton production increased from around 70% to 75%. The overall decrease was mainly due to a reduction in piscivorous demersal fish. Average secondary production by omnivorous zooplankton was estimated to be 35 g C m−2 y−1, and annual fluctuations were positively correlated with the gross production of planktivorous fish. The results suggest a “bottom-up” control of the pelagic foodweb. Individual planktivore species have been impacted by fishing, but the populations of other functionally similar species have expanded to fill the vacant niches, thus maintaining the planktivore role in the system. In contrast, the results indicate that benthos production was more “top-down” controlled. Overall, demersal fish species have been depleted by fishing, with no obvious species expansions to fill the vacant niche, releasing the benthos from predation pressure, and leading to an increase in benthic production and fisheries for invertebrates.


Author(s):  
K.F. Pearce ◽  
C.L.J. Frid

An analysis of species composition of the zooplankton, macrobenthos (two stations) and demersal fish from Northumberland (north-west North Sea) are reported. The four time-series show synchronous changes in species composition. While some of these changes coincide with changes in climateological variables, others do not. The degree of synchrony implies that either all the time-series are responding to a single set of extraneous forcing factors, or that food chain links, rapidly translate the signal through all ecosystem components.


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