CEFAS20ff7c47-8572-46bb-bfa6-a2f5b8d373a4 English dataset Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft Laboratory (CEFAS) Cefas Lowestoft Laboratory Pakefield Road Lowestoft Suffolk NR33 0HT UK data.manager@cefas.co.uk pointOfContact 2023-09-20T11:52:45 EPSG Geodetic Parameter Registry 2022-01-07 revision WGS 84 Spawning and nursery grounds of forage fish in Welsh and surrounding waters from 2008 to 2020 2022-06-21 publication 2023-09-20 revision 2022-05-10 creation CEFAS21465 https://data.cefas.co.uk The maps provide information on the location of spawning and nursery areas of several forage fish species in Welsh and surrounding waters, including the Irish and Celtic Seas and the western English Channel. The forage fish populations inhabiting these waters provide a key source of prey for many predators, such as marine mammal and seabird species, including several of conservation concern, that either breed or overwinter in the study area. Given that several forage fish species in the northeast Atlantic have shown major changes in distribution and abundance, up-to-date information on their recent distribution patterns is important, including on where the main nursery and spawning grounds are presently located. The maps are provided for eleven fish species that are prey to marine mammals and seabirds: herring, sprat, sardine, anchovy, sandeel, horse mackerel, mackerel and garfish as well as the gadoid species poor cod, whiting and cod. Using survey data from 2008 to 2020, hotspot maps were created for adults and juveniles of each of the species. Data on most of the species was sparse and some of the gears used in fisheries surveys were not designed to catch the target species. However, a hotspot methodology allowed data from different gears to be standardised and combined into a composite map which covered most of the study area during two periods of the year (Quarter 1 and Quarter 4). Maps largely corresponded to those previously reported although several new species were included for which no or limited historic maps were available, specifically sprat, poor cod and garfish. Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft Laboratory (CEFAS) Cefas Lowestoft Laboratory Pakefield Road Lowestoft Suffolk NR33 0HT UK data.manager@cefas.co.uk originator Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft Laboratory (CEFAS) Cefas Lowestoft Laboratory Pakefield Road Lowestoft Suffolk NR33 0HT UK data.manager@cefas.co.uk custodian Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft Laboratory (CEFAS) Cefas Lowestoft Laboratory Pakefield Road Lowestoft Suffolk NR33 0HT UK data.manager@cefas.co.uk distributor Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (HQ) dpofficer@rspb.org.uk owner notPlanned Fish SeaDataNet P03 parameter discovery vocabulary 2011-03-25 revision Spawning grounds Stock (biological) GEMET, version 1.0 2008-06-01 publication Species distribution GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 2008-06-01 publication Water column Benthic boundary Epipelagic SeaVoX Vertical Co-ordinate Coverages 2010-05-18 revision Marine Environmental Data and Information Network MEDIN metadata record availability 2012-01-11 publication data.gov.uk MEDIN metadata record availability 2012-01-11 publication otherRestrictions noLimitations otherRestrictions Publicly available data licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 ( `https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/)`_ – Please note the applicable attribution statement is as follows: ‘includes Crown copyright, Cefas [2021]' .. _`https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/)`: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ English biota -10.00 -1.00 48.00 55.00 2008 2020 Binary Delimited Unknown https://data.cefas.co.uk/view/21465 Cefas Data Portal download The Cefas Data Portal contains metadata records and data sets available to download and connect to in support of our commitment to open science. Data is available in the following formats: Binary download, CSV. dataset INSPIRE Data Specification on Species Distribution – Technical Guidelines 2013-12-10 publication false See the referenced specification Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services 2010-12-08 publication true See the referenced specification The focus of this study was spawning and nursery areas of forage fish in Welsh waters and surrounding shelf sea waters of the Celtic Sea, Irish Sea and the western English Channel. Publicly available data from international fisheries-independent surveys were supplemented by data collected on surveys by Cefas.Data from three different types of surveys were considered for this study: pelagic (acoustic), demersal otter trawl (also referred to as bottom trawl) and beam trawl surveys. The available surveys included in this study covered two periods, between February and April and between September and December. To ensure the largest possible spatial coverage, surveys in either period were pooled and termed Quarter 1 and Quarter 4. Distribution of juveniles in both Quarters (chapter 4) was considered representative of the nursery grounds for the species. However, the distribution of adult fish was only assumed to represent spawning areas during the Quarter that coincided with the spawning period. For some species the peak spawning periods fell outside the survey periods in which case no spawning maps could be produced. However, the adult fish distribution maps during both Quarters were included in this report. The survey data used in this work are limited to waters more than ~20 m deep and the maps of the spawning and nursery areas in this report are therefore not representative of estuarine and transitional waters. as the catchability of species varies by survey and, particularly, gear type, averaging the species abundance data from different surveys, would not have been appropriate. To compensate for differences between surveys in gear selectivity, we created distribution maps for each species and size category by using a hotspot approach. This was based on a threshold, applied to the abundance data for each survey year separately. For each species and size category, these binary hotspot maps were then averaged across the surveys and years within a period (Quarter). A full description of the hotspot methodology used can be found in Campanella and van der Kooij (2021) ( `https://waleslink.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1.-Spawning-and-nursery-grounds-of-forage-fish_CEFAS-project-report-for-RSPB.pdf`_ ) .. _`https://waleslink.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1.-spawning-and-nursery-grounds-of-forage-fish_cefas-project-report-for-rspb.pdf`: https://waleslink.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1.-Spawning-and-nursery-grounds-of-forage-fish_CEFAS-project-report-for-RSPB.pdf MEDIN 3.1.1