Emma Sheehan ‘Lyme Bay reef update following winter storms. Plymouth University Marine Institute has been annually monitoring recovery of the Lyme Bay reefs (south west UK) since they were protected from towed demersal fishing in 2008. It was unknown whether the reef assemblages would be impacted by this winter’s storms. Monitoring stations from the annual survey were sampled this April using a flying towed video sledge. The first signs indicate that the reefs have been heavily impacted. The video is not yet analysed, but initial observations were that massive amounts of sand have been dumped on the reefs and that a lot of recovering benthic fauna have been scoured away. Clearly some species were more resilient than others. While pink sea fans were still present, many were fouled and had black bases, but of most concern was that only two of the habitat building Ross corals were observed in approximately 12,000 m of video transects.
Video from the survey will now be analysed to examine two separate research questions. Lyme Bay is home to three different ages of marine protection, and NERC funded this study to test whether ecosystems in older MPAs are more resilient to disturbance than ecosystems in younger MPAs. It is now really important that the recovery of the reefs from this storm disturbance is monitored to examine whether reefs recover quicker from storm events than from anthropogenic disturbance.
The storms also presented an interesting opportunity to examine a claim from fishermen that ‘trawling and dredging is no worse than a big storm’. This latter study was funded by Pig shed trust and South West Inshore Fisheries Association. The results from both studies will be available this summer, so watch this space.’
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