Intertidal Monitoring of Underboulder Communities in the Menai Strait and Conwy Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC) 2004/2005 dataset https://portal.medin.org.uk/portal/start.php?tpc=007_NRW_DS101993 The Habitats Directive establishes that the management of Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) should aim to achieve the favourable conservation status of habitat and species features listed within its Annex I and Annex II. For SACs in Wales, the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) is therefore required to report on a regular basis on whether features are in favourable conservation status. A specific feature of the Menai Strait and Conwy Bay SAC are the underboulder communities, which are established in the extensive boulder areas within the SAC. Rich underboulder communities have been recorded and mapped on the rocky intertidal areas of the Menai Strait and an area west of Llandudno. Underboulder communities are also present where there are tide-swept communities that happen to lie on boulder habitats throughout the Menai Strait. Sponge dominated communities have been recorded from boulders and cobbles that are nationally uncommon, hosting a rich faunal turf on tide-swept substrata. The associated report combines the surveys and findings undertaking during 2004 (Boyes and Allen, 2004) and 2005 (Mazik et al. 2005). The report combines both datasets and additional analaysis has been completed using both sets of data. The purpose of this data capture was to - Provide a reference condition on species present at a number of sites within the SAC, - Evaluate the variability between boulders and between sites and attempt to correlate the variability with physical factors, - Identify the best methods for measuring the condition of the underboulder features in the SAC in the future and to evaluate the possible methods by which the impact of boulder turning can be assessed and monitored. 20130228