Marine

  • Assessing Plankton in the UK

    3rd February 2020 by

    Two scientists from Marine Scotland Science (MSS), Dr Eileen Bresnan and Dr Margarita Machairopoulou, have been involved in the first ever assessment of the status of the plankton community in UK waters. Led by the University of Plymouth, scientists from all around the UK joined together to share their datasets and knowledge to fill in…

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  • Camera Trials and Nephrops Trawls – An Update

    21st January 2019 by

    After a timely departure from Fraserburgh on Saturday the 5th of January, Alba na Mara sailed for the west coast to carry out underwater TV work on Nephrops grounds. The first task involved deploying a time lapse camera, attached to a large frame, in Upper Loch Torridon.  This was followed by a short steam to…

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  • Coastal Monitoring sites at Stonehaven and Loch Ewe

    4th October 2011 by

    There has been a training programme going on at Stonehaven and at the laboratory, to train a significant number of  new personnel and ensure that techniques and procedures are of a high standard. This is going very well although the poor weather at sea has caused quite a bit of disruption to the sampling programme….

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  • ICES/NAFO Decadal Symposium Presentations

    20th May 2011 by

    In a previous post, we mentioned that several talks and posters were going to be presented at the ICES/NAFO Deacadal Symposium held in May. The overall purpose of the symposium was to improve the understanding of hydro-biological variability between 2000 and 2009 in the North Atlantic. Several presentations and posters were provided by Marine Scotland…

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  • ICES/NAFO Decadal Symposium, May 2011

    18th January 2011 by

    The International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) and Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO) Symposium on the Variability of the North Atlantic and its Marine Ecosystems During 2000-2009 will be held in Spain in May this year. Abstracts have been submitted describing data collected at the Stonehaven and Loch Ewe monitoring stations. We…

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  • A Brief Introduction to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (directive 2008/56/EC)

    14th January 2011 by

    The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) seeks to establish a framework for community action in the field of marine environmental policy. This directive has called for the achievement of good environmental status (GES) by 2020 with an initial assessment of EU waters by 15 July 2012. The commission decision on criteria and methodological standards on…

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  • Sampling Zooplankton

    15th December 2010 by

    Plankton consists both of plant and animal organisms, ranging in size from a few micrometers (thousands of a millimetre (mm)) to a few centimetres or larger. Generally speaking, the plant plankton (phytoplankton) are smallest, and zooplankton tends to be bigger, although they still span a wide range of sizes, which may appear small to us as…

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  • Bongo nets

    14th December 2010 by

    Bongo nets (one with 68 and the other with 200 micron mesh) being deployed on a pristine, sunny winter day in Loch Ewe (13/12/10). (Photo: P. Maclachlan) It sure looks pretty out there, but we’re told temperatures were -0.8 degrees Cecius (13/12/10). We hope there was plenty of hot tea to hand for the samplers! 

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  • MASTS

    23rd November 2010 by

    The MASTS (Marine Alliance for Science & Technology Scotland) Annual Science Conference takes place in Oban at the end of this month. Included amidst a wide programme, presentations will be made on monitoring results from Stonehaven and Loch Ewe. More details will follow shortly…

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  • Snow on the mountains in the hinterlands of Loch Ewe

    1st November 2010 by

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