Biological Sciences

Solent European Marine Sites (SEMS) including Special Areas of Conservation (SACs); Special Protection Areas (SPAs); Ramsar sites; Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI); and local nature reserves. Intertidal mudflats and sandflats are key habitats for the SACs and a number of sites within the Solent are internationally important for birds (SPAs) and the directives require that these are conserved and protected. To ensure that the SEMS remains in a favourable condition a management scheme has been established and a number of strategies have been suggested for the management of bait collection, but the current method has relied on restrictions using a variety of legislative processes.

In the UK, lugworms (Arenicola spp.) and ragworms (Nereis spp.) are the two major groups collected with Nereis virens (Sars) being the most important species (Olive, 1994) for bait. The juxtaposition of large areas of protected coastal habitat and high levels of bait collection activity in the Solent gives great scope for conflict between parties. In this research funded by the Solent Forum and Chichester Conservancy we are currently investigating the effects of bait collection on the invertebrates living in the mud of a number of sites in the Solent.

The results from this  work is will be published in the Journal of Marine Biological Association of the UK:

Watson, G.J., Farrell, P., Stanton, S. and Skidmore, L.C. (2007).  The effects of bait collection on Nereis virens populations and macrofaunal communities in the Solent, UK.  J. Mar. Biol. Ass. UK in press.

Figure 1
Ragworm (Nereis virens) and lugworm (Arenicola marina) (common bait species)

Figure 2
Methods of sampling the macrofauna at different sites