Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-17T20:07:45.063Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Occurrence of the physonect siphonophore Apolemia uvaria off Plymouth and in south-west England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2010

Keith Hiscock*
Affiliation:
Marine Biological Association, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth PL1 2PB, UK
Gillian M. Mapstone
Affiliation:
Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
David V.P. Conway
Affiliation:
Marine Biological Association, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth PL1 2PB, UK
Nicholas Halliday
Affiliation:
Marine Biological Association, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth PL1 2PB, UK
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: K. Hiscock Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth PL1 2PB, UK email: khis@mba.ac.uk
Get access

Abstract

In September 2007, observations were made of a siphonophore in surface waters and near to the seabed by sea users off south Devon and south-east Cornwall. The same siphonophore was also recorded from regular samples collected offshore of Plymouth. The species is identified as Apolemia uvaria, which had not previously been recorded off Plymouth. It was sampled until March 2008 and re-appeared, in smaller numbers, in autumn 2008 until February 2009 but was not reliably reported in autumn 2009 (to end of October). The occurrence is unlikely to be due to sea warming, but more likely some variation in oceanic currents, possibly influxes of Atlantic water.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Båmstedt, U., Fosså, J.H., Martinussen, M.B. and Fosshagen, A. (1998) Mass occurrence of the physonect siphonophore Apolemia uvaria (Lesueur) in Norwegian waters. Sarsia 83, 7985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, J.H. (1961) The oceanic and bathypelagic plankton of the north-east Atlantic. Marine Research 4, 148.Google Scholar
Kirkpatrick, P.A. and Pugh, P.R. (1984) Siphonophores and velellids. Synopsis of the British Fauna, Number 29. London: The Linnean Society of London and The Estuarine and Brackish-Water Sciences Association, E.J. Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mapstone, G.M. (2003) Redescriptions of two physonect siphonophores, Apolemia uvaria (Lesueur, 1815) and Tottonia contorta Margulis, 1976, with comments on a third species Ramosia vitiazi Stepanjants, 1967 (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa: Apolemiidae). Systematics and Biodiversity 1, 181212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mapstone, G.M. (2009) Siphonophora (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) of Canadian Pacific waters. Ottawa: NRC Press, 302 pp.Google Scholar
Marine Biological Association (1957) Plymouth marine fauna. Plymouth: The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.Google Scholar