.@BBCFarmingToday Bluefin tuna in UK seas and other fish species. This is a thread to shed more insight on your 8th December programme and this article (See 2)bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan… 2) Bluefin tuna started reappearing in UK seas about 12 years ago. I, along with colleagues, gave an explanation in 2019 in our article in the journal 'Science Advances', free to read here: (see 3)science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

1) An October 17th BBC news report of a dead bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus)
that washed up on a Dorset beach suggested this signalled a species comeback. This has provoked me to write this thread about just some of the wildlife changes in UK seas. (See 2)bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan… 2) Bluefin tuna started reappearing in UK seas about 12 years ago. I, along with colleagues, gave an explanation in 2019 in our article in the journal 'Science Advances', free to read here: and reported by the BBC here: . (see 3)science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…

1) Could this explain the salp bloom? Surface (Level 4) Phytoplankton Chlorophyll-a evolution from 1st August and covering the period of the Salp bloom first sampled inshore off Plymouth on 8th August and persisting throughout the month. @zeiss_micro (see 2) 2) Graphical representation for Land's End and Plymouth. Daily Level 4 chlorophyll-a from the CMEMS datastore at a spatial resolution of 4 km, using an interpolation method to fill gaps in missing areas. (Data prepared by colleagues J Castant and G Beaugrand, Univ Lille) (see 3)

@mcsuk 2) Here is a graphic (see 3) @mcsuk 3) When we wrote the above paper the AMO was considered a reproducible climate cycle in the North Atlantic. Since then however, it has been realised the AMO is an artefact of several warming and cooling phenomena that appeared to give a long-term cyclical effect. (see 4)

1) A rare, remarkable event. In the sea surface from at least Dartmouth in S Devon to Portheras in N Cornwall, UK, our planktonic relative (it's a chordate) the salp Salpa fusiformis is blooming. If this was a bloom of animals on land it would be NEWS and we (see 2) @zeiss_micro 2) would be both amazed and curious to know why. The event is so rare that crab fishermen that have worked the sea for generations are asking "what are these creatures that are so abundant?" My plankton samples have been full of these animals for the last month (see 3).

1) Following in Charles Darwin's wake, I still use nets to sample the plankton today. This thread is a series of 32 weekly, short videos narrated by #DavidAttenborough to introduce this remarkable world of microscopic life. RT to make this series a success.
@zeiss_micro 2) Charles Darwin: Many of these creatures so low in the scale of nature are most exquisite in their forms and rich colours – It creates a feeling of wonder that so much beauty should be apparently created for so little purpose. @zeiss_micro

@mcsuk @wwf_uk @ClientEarth @GoodFishGuideUK 1) In addition to understanding the effect of fishing pressure on a stock (top down control) we must also understand the role of the environment (bottom up control) if we are to understand variations in the abundance of a stock. @mcsuk @wwf_uk @ClientEarth @GoodFishGuideUK 2) In particular, climate, through its influence on sea temperature is an important bottom up driver of cod abundance in the North Sea. (We, as warm-blooded animals that can also engineer our habitat, often overlook the influence of temperature on cold-blooded animals.)