Irish Sea Plaice Spawning and Juvenile Distribution Survey, 2001-2003

Ichthyoplankton and beach surveys were undertaken in 2001, 2002 and 2003 by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science. The data includes counts of fish eggs and larvae, lengths of juvenile plaice and other species from beam trawls, and micro-increment counts from prepared otoliths. This project focused on examining plaice spawning and settling juvenile distribution in the eastern Irish Sea.

Use Cases

• Modeling plaice spawning distribution based on ichthyoplankton sample counts and positional data.
• Analyzing juvenile plaice settlement patterns based on length data and species counts from beam trawl surveys.
• Studying growth rates of juvenile plaice based on micro-increment counts from otoliths.
• Investigating the co-distribution of plaice with other species like shrimp (Crangon crangon) and crabs in nursery areas.

Strengths

• Data collection spans three consecutive years (2001-2003), allowing for temporal trend analysis.
• Includes multiple data types: plankton counts, juvenile fish lengths, and biological aging data from otoliths.
• Surveys were conducted by a government science agency (Cefas), suggesting a standardized methodology.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas)

Collection Method

Ichthyoplankton net sampling and beach sampling with a small beam trawl.

Time Range

2001 to 2003

Freshness

Data collection concluded in 2003; it is a historical snapshot.

Geography

Eastern Irish Sea