The North-East Region

The great North Eastern rocky reef stretches along the Northumberland coast for miles, providing a habitat for a massive array of life, including deeplet sea anemones, light bulb sea squirts, edible sea urchins, bottle brush hydroids and several species of fish, including lumpsuckers, pollock, leopard spotted goby, brightly coloured cuckoo wrasse and the fearsome looking wolf-fish. The Farne Islands, lying off the Northumberland coast are the only rocky islands off the English North Sea coast and contain the clearest water and most extensive areas of sublittoral rock on this coastline. The islands, divide into two groups the inner and outer Farnes, with two outlying rocks, the Megstone to the North-West and the deeper waters in the Crumstone to the South. The islands are National Nature Reserves, well known for their seabird and Atlantic grey seal populations. The waters are also designated as Marine Special Areas of Conservation. 

The waters off the North coast are also home to a range of mystery and diversity, in the form of a maze of underwater gullies, cliffs and sea caves. These rocky areas, dangerous for shipping contain the remains of many wrecks. Extensive kelp forests growing out from the rocky seabed provide an important feeding ground for grey seals, of which the Farnes contains three-quarters of the English population (3,600 individuals). Furth offshore are great beds of venus clams, mackerel spawning and thornback ray hunting grounds.

One of the key marine features within the North-East and Yorkshire region of the North Sea are the presence of extensive kelp forests, which provide nursery and feeding grounds for a wide range of marine species.

Kelp Forests

These underwater rainforests, are one of the most productive ecosystems temperate marine environments support. They consist of  hundreds of individual Laminaria spp. (brown seaweeds) attached to hard substrata, such as rocky seabed. Individual plants stand tall on the rocks, stretching up into the water column like small trees. Kelp is found in waters where there is a hard substrata to attach to and high levels of nutrients and light. Kelp forests provide food and shelter for many marine species, such as herbivorous urchins which graze and feed on the kelp. The high presence of fish life here, sheltering between the long brown fronds also makes kelp forests primary feeding grounds for grey seals.

Human influence on kelp forests has in temperate and tropical environments led to its degradation. Overfishing, in particular in nearshore waters can release herbivores from their normal population regulation and result in over grazing of kelp. This may then have a knock-on effect, resulting in the transition of a very productive to a barren landscape. Studies abroad have shown MPAs may potentially be a form of addressing these issues affecting key habitats, such as kelp.