Outer Ards Annex I Modiolus modiolus biogenic reefs
It is widely recognised that M. modiolus reefs represent biodiversity ÔÇÿhotspotsÔÇÖ (e.g. Rees et al., 2008). In the Craigbrain and Burial Island Modiolus reefs, diversity indices from samples containing more than 9 live Modiolus per m2 showed numbers of taxa per sample ranging from 31 to 161, Shannon-Weiner diversity indices of between 2.0 and 4.3, and PielouÔÇÖs evenness index ranging from 0.52 to 0.95, which are all comparable to figures from similar open coast Modiolus reefs such as those of North Llyn and sites in Loch Alsh (see Fari├▒as-Franco et al., 2014). The diversity indices did not differ markedly from the surrounding area which is characterised by muddy sandy gravels with high shell content (mostly dead Modiolus shell), however the infaunal communities were significantly different between ÔÇ£Modiolus reefÔÇØ and ÔÇ£surrounding sedimentsÔÇØ (as determined through multivariate community analysis, including cluster analysis and ANOSIM routines). Due to inconsistencies in recording of epifaunal species from the grab samples, the epifaunal communities could not be statistically examined; however it was clear that there is a marked increase in the number of epifaunal species over the reef areas. Density of living Modiolus ranged from zero to 530 per m2 . These numbers are similar to those in other open coast reefs, such as the North Llyn beds (Fari├▒as-Franco et al., 2014), and the variation in numbers per m2 is indicative of the patchy nature of the reefs. The Craigbrain site appears to show the highest numbers of living Modiolus per m2 , however due to the limited number of samples and small areal coverage of grab samples it cannot be concluded that this reef site is markedly different from the Burial Island reef site, and the infaunal community analysis does not show statistically significant differences between the Craigbrain and Burial Island reef sites.
Simple
- Alternate title
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GB400003
- Date (Creation)
- 2016-06-01
- Date (Publication)
- 2018-04-25
- Citation identifier
- EMODnetSeabedHabitats / GB400003
- Point of contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role DAERA Marine and Fisheries Division
Marine.InfoRequests@daera-ni.gov.uk
Owner AFBI Seabed Habitat Mapping Project
info@afbini.gov info@afbini.gov.uk
Originator
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GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
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Habitats and biotopes
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http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/codelist/ReferenceHabitatTypeSchemeValue
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Habitats directive
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- Use limitation
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┬® DAERA . Data may be re-used under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.
- Use limitation
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geossAttribution
- Access constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
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no limitation
- Spatial representation type
- Vector
- Denominator
- 10000
- Language
- English
- Topic category
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- Environment
- Oceans
- Begin date
- 2012-01-01
- End date
- 2014-12-31
- Supplemental Information
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AFBI, 2016. Special Area of Conservation Designation Assessment of Outer Ards Modiolus modiolus Biogenic Reef. Report to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Northern Ireland. Available from: https://www.afbini.gov.uk/sites/afbini.gov.uk/files/publications/Outer%20Ards%20Modiolus%20reef%202016%20AFBI%20report%20v1%203c%20H_0.pdf [Accessed 2018/04/30]
- Reference system identifier
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EPSG
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WGS 84 (EPSG:4326)
/
7.9
- Topology level
- Geometry only
- Distribution format
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Name Version ESRI Shapefile
1.0
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
https://www.afbini.gov.uk/sites/afbini.gov.uk/files/publications/Outer%20Ards%20Modiolus%20reef%202016%20AFBI%20report%20v1%203c%20H_0.pdf Assessment of Outer Ards Modiolus modiolus biogenic reefs against Special Area of Conservation (SAC) criteria
OGC:WMS
https://ows.emodnet-seabedhabitats.eu/geoserver/emodnet_view_maplibrary/wms? gb400003
OGC:WFS
https://ows.emodnet-seabedhabitats.eu/geoserver/emodnet_open_maplibrary/wfs? gb400003
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
https://files.emodnet-seabedhabitats.eu/data/EMODnetSBHsurvey_GB400003.zip EMODnet Seabed Habitats download
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Conformance result
- Date (Publication)
- 2009-12-15
- Explanation
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See the referenced specification
- Pass
- Yes
Conformance result
- Date (Publication)
- 2010-12-08
- Explanation
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See the referenced specification
- Pass
- Yes
- Statement
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The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) under the Civil Hydrography Programme (CHP) commissioned an IHO Order 1a bathymetric survey of an area extending from outer Belfast Lough to St. JohnÔÇÖs Point, adjacent to the Ards Peninsula. ÔÇÿHI1377ÔÇÖ was completed in 2013 by UKHO contractors using a Reson SeaBat multibeam echosounder system, and data were cleaned and tidally corrected according to CHP standards, with bathymetric data were exported as a 32-bit floating point Bathymetric Attributed Grid (BAG), with a 2m horizontal spatial resolution.
AFBI completed small areas of multibeam using the Kongsberg EM3002 within the Outer Ards area in 2012, with overlap on some of the areas of interest, which have backscatter data available. Investigation of these data are ongoing and will be reported as a supplementary annex.
The HI1377 bathymetric data were post-processed to yield the following derivatives using the Spatial Analyst toolset in ArcGIS 10.3 and Benthic Terrain Modeller (Wright et al., 2012) extension:
1. Slope angle
2. Aspect ÔÇô northness and eastness
3. Terrain ruggedness
A variety of data sources were made available to this project:
1. Historic diver records within Marine Recorder, including Northern Ireland Sublittoral Survey
dives and recent dives by the DAERA dive team;
2. DAERA grab sample data (2012) including full infaunal species abundance and biomass
matrices, and particle size analysis data;
3. QUB grab sample data (2014) indicating number of live Modiolus per grab sample;
4. AFBI grab sample data from 2010, 2013 and 2014 including full infaunal species
abundance and biomass matrices and particle size analysis data;
10
5. AFBI annual seed mussel survey data, including dredge survey data and video footage.
All data (historic and new survey data) were collated within ArcGIS 10.3 and used to examine relationships between grab sample community data, number of living Modiolus, biotope distribution from video and potential acoustic signatures. Together, these data were assessed according to the criteria published in Morris (2014) and biogenic reef extent drawn within the ArcGIS environment based upon the evidence collated.
Metadata
- File identifier
- d6411cff-ddd9-4154-b9c6-17105ea53dc7 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- MD_CharacterSetCode_utf8
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Date stamp
- 2020-01-15T12:21:18
- Metadata standard name
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ISO19115
- Metadata standard version
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2003/Cor.1:2006
- Metadata author
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role JNCC
HabitatMapping@jncc.gov HabitatMapping@jncc.gov.uk
Point of contact