Marine Scotland

  • Sharks, skates and rays

    13th August 2020 by

    Picture of skate. Crown Copyright

    It’s shark week and with over 30 species of sharks, skates and rays recorded in Scottish waters there’s a lot to celebrate! Sharks are part of the elasmobranch family, which also includes skates and rays. Elasmobranchs differ from other fish in the sea by having a skeletal structure made out of cartilage as opposed to...

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  • Marine Mammals – updated demographics – how do we measure that?

    6th August 2020 by

    Bottlenose dolphins near ship. Crown Copyright

    Understanding the impacts of human activities, and preventing harm to habitats and species, is one of the biggest challenges to marine industries. The Scottish Government’s Scottish Marine Research Energy Programme (ScotMER) has published three new studies to assist when assessing the impact of offshore renewable developments on marine mammals. These new reports pull together key...

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  • How our Planning Team Plan for a Plan!

    11th June 2020 by

    Last December, after two years of technical planning work, stakeholder engagement, drafting, revising, re-drafting and several sleepless nights the ‘draft Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy’ was published and open for public consultation, meeting a Programme for Government commitment. Over 350 people attended across all of the events, including; community councillors, elected members, local...

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  • Collecting Cameras and Grabbing Samples

    28th October 2019 by

    MRV Scotia Survey: 1619S Duration: 26 October – 1 November 2019 Equipment: Day grab; sieve table; time lapse cameras and associated moorings, acoustic device mooring with broadband receiver. Objectives: Recover the time lapse cameras used to assess the macro benthic ecology of drill cuttings around the Murchison oil field. Deploy an acoustic mooring at approximately...

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  • Ocean Acidification and the Damage it can Cause

    21st October 2019 by

    Dr Pablo Leon Diaz, Plankton Ecologist in Marine Scotland Science, has just had a paper “Relationship between shell integrity of pelagic gastropods and carbonate chemistry parameters at a Scottish Coastal Observatory monitoring site” published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science. The paper presents the first investigation of the impacts of ocean acidification on shell-forming...

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  • Marine Mammals, Sediment Sampling and Looking for a Missing Buoy

    21st October 2019 by

    MRV Alba na Mara Survey: 1819A Duration: 21 – 31 October 2019 Objectives: Recover and redeploy marine mammal monitoring moorings with acoustic releases, at eight sites in the Sea of the Hebrides and North Minch. Collect sediment samples at a number of sites south of Skye. Attempt to locate and recover ‘missing’ buoy close to...

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  • Prey Species across Smith Bank

    30th August 2019 by

    MRV Alba na Mara Survey: 1419A Programme Duration: 27-30 August 2019 Locations: Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited (BOWL); Moray East Offshore Windfarm (MEOW); Moray West Offshore Windfarm (MWOW). Objectives Primary Objectives: Study the distribution of prey species (fish schools and zooplankton patches) across Smith Bank in relation to data available from BOWL post-construction digital aerial surveys...

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  • Meet Rebecca Langton – Species Distribution Modeller

    30th January 2019 by

    In our series of Science in Government Conference posters Rebecca Langton tells us about the MarPAMM (Marine Protected Area Management and Monitoring) Project and how she contributes to finding out where vulnerable species are on the seabed.  Read on to see what a typical day would be like for Rebecca.     Further Information: Follow...

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  • Reviewing our Year of Science

    18th January 2019 by

    Trawling for smolts MRV Scotia. Photo by Ross Gardiner © Crown copyright

    Today sees the publication of our Annual Science Review for 2017/18. The Review, which highlights the impacts and achievements of Marine Scotland Science (MSS), details the overall contribution and support that our scientists make to the work of Marine Scotland. During this period we have published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and supported more than 75...

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  • Sunbeam Surveys going Swimmingly

    21st May 2018 by

    MRV Sunbeam FR 487

    Scientists from Marine Scotland Science (MSS) have recently been operating on Fraserburgh pelagic trawler Sunbeam (FR 487) to survey salmon smolts at various points on the Scottish east coast. Operating in the Moray Firth, Firths of Forth and Tay, MSS used a specially designed net for sampling very close to the surface. The net incorporates...

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