Variability through space and time
Before we can identify the impact of human activities on marine
biodiversity, we must first appreciate the extent to which
biodiversity varies over space and time.
The Plymouth Marine Fauna data set comprises one of the most
complete catalogues of marine life in the world. Yet, as we have
started to move towards understanding the way in which ecosystems
function, it has become clear that we need to understand far more
about the way in which biota changes over space and time. The
Oceans 2025 NERC strategic marine science programme has provided an
opportunity to obtain some missing information by establishing a
programme of sampling of benthic organisms at five constrasting
sites around Plymouth, ranging from course offshore shell gravel to
sheltered mud banks.
PML also has a long history of biodiversity research into
smaller organisms, in particular plankton, which have been
collected over the last 20 years at the L4 sampling station, 7
nautical miles from Plymouth. As these data sets now span two
decades, patterns of seasonal and interannual variability are
becoming distinguishable from long-term trends. This has shown
that, whilst some of the typical cold water organisms have
decreased in abundance during this time, some other warm water
species such as barnacle larvae have increased in numbers.
Projects
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L4 plankton
Ongoing zooplankton research at the PML
has established a time series of zooplankton species since 1988,
and a time series for a range of physical, chemical and biological
measurements, including phytoplankton species composition since
1992 at L4, a coastal station off Plymouth.
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Interreg project: Marinexus
Marinexus which involves cross channel
collaboration with the Roscoff Observatory and MeDON, which is
developing a cabled observatory in collaboration with
IFREMER.