On 28th September a dozen members of Coastwise took part in monitoring the shore at Lee Bay, near Ilfracombe. They sampled the shore and counted the plants and animals from the upper to lower shore under the guidance of marine expert Pip Jollands from Hallsannery Field Centre.
The results are sent to the marine monitoring organization MarLin at Plymouth as part of the Shore Thing project where each year’s results can be compared with others and provide information about changing populations. Amongst the main influences are climate change and the influx of alien species
An alien now familiar on our shores is wireweed from the Pacific which is gradually infiltrating our rock pools, where it floats on the surface and could shade out our native seaweeds. The group found a little more at Lee this year than last, but other changes will only be seen as significant when the data collected is systematically compared with data from past years and other places in MarLin’s national survey.