Europe – Seas, Short Stories

Photographs, words and digital art Nick Sidle

Photograph – Wreck of ‘The Thesis’, Sound of Mull, Argyllshire, Scotland

Dolphin, Bottlenose

Photograph – Bottlenose Dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, Moray Firth, Scotland

Each dolphin has their own name as a whistle sound. They sleep one side of their brain and then the other, not both at once. Across the world associated with play and fun right from the Dreamtime stories of native Australia onwards and they have larger brains than people. Perhaps they and fun have been underestimated.

Eelgrass, Common

Digital Art – Common Eelgrass, Zostera marina

Eelgrass is not a seaweed, it is a flowering plant which grows underwater down to a depth of about 10m. They need to be shallow enough to get good amounts of sunlight to carry out photosynthesis just like grasses on land. The plants can be closely spaced on the sandy or muddy areas of seabed they favour and forming dense seagrass meadows. Where Eelgrass grows it provides a very valuable habitat for small fish, crustaceans and other animals, they are an important ecosystem. They are also a food source for birds such as geese especially in the winter. Their plant credentials extend to having flowers and a Rhizome root system. Even if eelgrass dies and breaks off from its roots, it can be the basis for a new habitat if it is washed up on the shoreline where it can be colonised by insects and invertebrates. Eelgrasses in Scotland are a protected area plant but are threatened by pollution, coastal developments and invasive species.

Kelp Forests

Photograph – Forest Kelp, Laminaria hyperborea

Kelp is one of the predominant large seaweeds around the coasts of Scotland and Britain. There is more than one species, but the main type is Forest Kelp, Laminaria hyperborea, however Kelp forests, the term used to describe large areas of Kelp, are made up of all the varieties. Even though Kelp is relatively common, the Kelp forests are a unique, valuable and threatened habitat. Concentrations of many species live in the forests making them a very highly biodiverse ecosystem and any disturbance brings a high environmental cost. Estimates put the number of species found on and around the kelp to be in the hundreds and larger animals, fish, birds otters and seals all of which are of conservation concern themselves, all benefit from the Kelp resident or supported animals. Each Kelp plant has at the base of the stalk a ‘holdfast’ that anchors the kelp to the bottom. The Kelp can then grow up to 10 feet in height and it is the multiple plants that make up a forest, just like trees on land. One of the main threats to Kelp is commercial dredging, extracts from the seaweed are used in the cosmetics, textile and food processing industries. Apart from the ecosystem and biodiversity risks, Kelp forests also serve to dissipate wave energy in storms helping to protect the coastline and act as carbon stores and so mitigate climate change to a degree. Kelp emerged approximately 15 million years ago but now contributes to the future of the earth. It is found in water temperatures of 6 to 14°C and grows rapidly in the summer, although it does die back in the winter as well.

Photograph – Forest Kelp, Laminaria hyperborea

There is a suggestion that Kelp forests are such a productive ecosystem that they shaped human history around the Pacific Rim. Early peoples spread out from Northeast Asia to the Americas and were helped substantially by the nearshore Kelp habitats providing some shelter and abundant food. A great deal of human experience and some human history has been made by Kelp forests, even though they are mostly ‘out of sight’. For their future and for peoples futures, they must not be ‘out of mind’.

Sea Bream

Don’t tell fish they only have short memories, they may hold it against you for a very long time

Digital Art – Black Sea Bream, Spondyliosoma cantharus

It has long been said that fish, Goldfish in particular, only have memories measured in seconds, possibly as short as three seconds. There have long been grounds to question this. Some fish form stable pair bonds and the ‘who are you?’ moment after three seconds apart on the reef could be awkward. Research has confirmed far more developed memory functions than a few seconds including in Goldfish, the three second hypothesis has for some time been confirmed as wrong. A recent study raises the need for respect of fish cognitive functions even further. The Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour in Southern Germany looking at Sea Bream in the Mediterranean has shown that the fish have a real ability to analyse the dress sense of divers and translate that information into advantageous behaviour:

https://www.ab.mpg.de/660867/news_publication_24151953_transferred

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0558

What the study showed was an ability to learn to recognise divers by the colours of their equipment and know from a developed response which one to follow for food. Two divers were in the water and only one went on to feed the fish. If they wore different coloured sets of equipment, for example the fins, then the fish learned which diver to follow. If they wore identical equipment, the fish were unable to choose which to go with. As one of the researchers notes on The Institute web site, ‘Now we know they see us, it’s time for us to see them.’

Whale, Northern Minke

Photograph – Northern Minke Whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, North of Portsoy, Banffshire, Scotland

Smallest of the true baleen whales the Minke could be sensitive about size except they are still up to 35 feet (11m) so small is relative. So is their security, numbers have recovered but all marine mammals are under pressure. In Highland the Minke have their own species champion, Cllr Trish Robertson, so at least someone makes sure they are not forgotten and get a real chance to live the full fifty years they are thought to have.