Summary of time requirements and potential improvements for Marine Recorder data entry.

The contract work has demonstrated that older data can be assessed and entered into the MR format. Older data has associated problems but is retrievable. The contract successfully imported all datasets as required. MNCR survey sheets fit well into the MR format. The data validation and verification process can be improved. A number of computerised short cuts can be suggested and the process made more intuitive. Such a move is vital if MR is to be adopted as a standard by the recording community both on a voluntary level and potentially by consultancies.

Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean

Antarctic krill is a cold water species, an increasingly important fishery resource and a major prey item for many fish, birds and mammals in the Southern Ocean. The fishery and the summer foraging sites of many of these predators are concentrated between 0 degrees and 90 degrees W. Parts of this quadrant have experienced recent localised sea surface warming of up to 0.2 degrees C per decade, and projections suggest that further widespread warming of 0.27 degrees to 1.08 degrees C will occur by the late 21st century. We assessed the potential influence of this projected warming on Antarctic krill habitat with a statistical model that links growth to temperature and chlorophyll concentration. The results divide the quadrant into two zones: a band around the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in which habitat quality is particularly vulnerable to warming, and a southern area which is relatively insensitive. Our analysis suggests that the direct effects of warming could reduce the area of growth habitat by up to 20%. The reduction in growth habitat within the range of predators, such as Antarctic fur seals, that forage from breeding sites on South Georgia could be up to 55%, and the habitat's ability to support Antarctic krill biomass production within this range could be reduced by up to 68%. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the effects of a 50% change in summer chlorophyll concentration could be more significant than the direct effects of warming. A reduction in primary production could lead to further habitat degradation but, even if chlorophyll increased by 50%, projected warming would still cause some degradation of the habitat accessible to predators. While there is considerable uncertainty in these projections, they suggest that future climate change could have a significant negative effect on Antarctic krill growth habitat and, consequently, on Southern Ocean biodiversity and ecosystem services.

High dispersal potential has maintained long-term population stability in the North Atlantic copepod Calanus finmarchicus

The cool-water copepod Calanus finmarchicus is a key species in North Atlantic marine ecosystems since it represents an important food resource for the developmental stages of several fish of major economic value. Over the last 40 years, however, data from the Continuous Plankton Recorder survey have highlighted a 70 per cent reduction in C. finmarchicus biomass, coupled with a gradual northward shift in the species's distribution, which have both been linked with climate change. To determine the potential for C. finmarchicus to track changes in habitat availability and maintain stable effective population sizes, we have assessed levels of gene flow and dispersal in current populations, as well as using a coalescent approach together with palaeodistribution modelling to elucidate the historical population demography of the species over previous changes in Earth's climate. Our findings indicate high levels of dispersal and a constant effective population size over the period 359 000–566 000 BP and suggest that C. finmarchicus possesses the capacity to track changes in available habitat, a feature that may be of crucial importance to the species's ability to cope with the current period of global climate change.

Developments since 2005 in understanding potential environmental impacts of CO2 leakage from geological storage

This paper reviews research into the potential environmental impacts of leakage from geological storage of CO2 since the publication of the IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage in 2005. Possible impacts are considered on onshore (including drinking water aquifers) and offshore ecosystems. The review does not consider direct impacts on man or other land animals from elevated atmospheric CO2 levels. Improvements in our understanding of the potential impacts have come directly from CO2 storage research but have also benefitted from studies of ocean acidification and other impacts on aquifers and onshore near surface ecosystems. Research has included observations at natural CO2 sites, laboratory and field experiments and modelling. Studies to date suggest that the impacts from many lower level fault- or well-related leakage scenarios are likely to be limited spatially and temporarily and recovery may be rapid. The effects are often ameliorated by mixing and dispersion of the leakage and by buffering and other reactions; potentially harmful elements have rarely breached drinking water guidelines. Larger releases, with potentially higher impact, would be possible from open wells or major pipeline leaks but these are of lower probability and should be easier and quicker to detect and remediate.

Chaetopterid tubes from vent and seep sites: Implications for fossil record and evolutionary history of vent and seep annelids

Vestimentiferan tube worms living at deep-sea hydrothermal vents and cold seeps have been considered as a clade with a long and continuing evolutionary history in these ecosystems. Whereas the fossil record appears to support this view, molecular age estimates do not. The two main features that are used to identify vestimentiferan tubes in the fossil record are longitudinal ridges on the tube's surface and a tube wall constructed of multiple layers. It is shown here that chaetopterid tubes from modern vents and seeps—as well as a number of fossil tubes from shallow-water environments—also show these two features. This calls for a more cautious interpretation of tubular fossils from ancient vent and seep deposits. We suggest that: current estimates for a relatively young evolutionary age based on molecular clock methods may be more reliable than the inferences of ancient “vestimentiferans” based on putative fossils of these worms; not all of these putative fossils actually belong to this group; and that tubes from fossil seeps should be investigated for chitinous remains to substantiate claims of their potential siboglinid affinities.

Temporal differences across a bio-geographical boundary reveal slow response of sub-littoral benthos to climate change

The English Channel is located at the biogeographical boundary between the northern Boreal and southern Lusitanian biozones and therefore represents an important area to study the effects of global warming on marine organisms. While the consequences of climatic change in the western English Channel have been relatively well documented for fish, plankton and inter-tidal benthic communities, data highlighting the same effects on the distribution of sub-littoral benthic organisms does, to date, not exist. The present study resurveyed a subset of sites originally surveyed from 1958 to 1959 along the UK coast of the English Channel. The main aims of this resurvey were to describe the present status of benthic communities and to investigate potential temporal changes, in particular distributional changes in western stenothermal ‘cold’ water and southern Lusitanian ‘warm’ water species. The increase in water temperature observed since the historic survey was predicted to have caused a contraction in the distribution of cold water species and an extension in the distribution of warm water species. The temporal comparison did not show any clear broad-scale distributional changes in benthic communities consistent with these predictions. Nevertheless, 2 warm water species, the sting winkle Ocenebra erinacea and the introduced American slipper limpet Crepidula fornicata, did show range extensions and increased occurrence, possibly related to climatic warming. Similarly, warm water species previously not recorded by the historic survey were found. The absence of broad-scale temporal differences in sub-tidal communities in response to climatic warming has been reported for other areas and may indicate that these communities respond far more slowly to environmental changes compared to plankton, fish and inter-tidal organisms.

Temporal differences across a bio-geographical boundary reveal slow response of sub-littoral benthos to climate change

The English Channel is located at the biogeographical boundary between the northern Boreal and southern Lusitanian biozones and therefore represents an important area to study the effects of global warming on marine organisms. While the consequences of climatic change in the western English Channel have been relatively well documented for fish, plankton and inter-tidal benthic communities, data highlighting the same effects on the distribution of sub-littoral benthic organisms does, to date, not exist. The present study resurveyed a subset of sites originally surveyed from 1958 to 1959 along the UK coast of the English Channel. The main aims of this resurvey were to describe the present status of benthic communities and to investigate potential temporal changes, in particular distributional changes in western stenothermal ‘cold’ water and southern Lusitanian ‘warm’ water species. The increase in water temperature observed since the historic survey was predicted to have caused a contraction in the distribution of cold water species and an extension in the distribution of warm water species. The temporal comparison did not show any clear broad-scale distributional changes in benthic communities consistent with these predictions. Nevertheless, 2 warm water species, the sting winkle Ocenebra erinacea and the introduced American slipper limpet Crepidula fornicata, did show range extensions and increased occurrence, possibly related to climatic warming. Similarly, warm water species previously not recorded by the historic survey were found. The absence of broad-scale temporal differences in sub-tidal communities in response to climatic warming has been reported for other areas and may indicate that these communities respond far more slowly to environmental changes compared to plankton, fish and inter-tidal organisms.