The 2002 Prince Madog Prize
An integrated marine monitoring workshop onboard the RV Price Madog November 14-18th 2003
Brett Lyons and Grant Stentiford recently won the inaugural Prince Madog prize, against academic and research council opposition. The prize involves a free research trip on the RV Prince Madog offered by Vosper-Thornycroft (VT) Ocean Science (http://www.vtplc.com/ocean/) and the University of Bangor, and delivering a lecture to the UK Challenger Society afterwards. The proposal aims to provide a cutting edge research and training programme specifically designed to investigate the contaminant related health status of Cardigan Bay’s marine ecosystem.
This will be achieved by conducting an integrated sea going workshop employing a series of novel molecular, biochemical, chemical, pathological and whole organism endpoints. The workshop will bring together leading UK scientists from both academic and end-user communities. As such, this will help to formalise collaborative links with Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and the Universities of Sussex and Birmingham.
The workshop will primarily focus on flatfish populations present in Cardigan Bay, which for reasons yet to be identified display elevated levels of external disease conditions and liver pathology. Furthermore, the project will provide an integrated overview of the health status of Cardigan Bay, one of the UK’s most important marine environments.
Why choose Cardigan Bay?
Cardigan Bay is considered a pristine location and as such, much of the coastal area is designated as a 'Special Protection Area' under the EC 'Birds' directive. In addition, large areas have been proposed as 'Special Areas of Conservation' under the new EC Habitats Directive. The southern section of Cardigan Bay contains the Skomer Marine Nature Reserve, which is one of only three statutory Marine Nature Reserves in the UK. As well as Skomer, there are a number of other important areas designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI’s), including St. David's Peninsula Coast and Ramsey Island. Cardigan Bay is also home to one of only two known semi-resident populations of bottlenose dolphins and the breeding populations of grey seals in the Pembrokeshire and Cardigan Bay area are nationally important. However, work conducted by Cefas has shown that flatfish (dab, Limanda limanda) populations residing in Cardigan Bay have elevated levels of liver pathology compared with frequencies considered to represent a background incidence of disease. The identification of elevated levels of fish diseases and pathology, whether caused by infectious agents, environmental factors or xenobiotics, are considered to be highly relevant indicators of ecosystem health. This project aims to bring together scientists with the relevant experience to provide an integrated assessment of the health status of Cardigan Bay’s marine environment. In doing so it is hoped that a better understanding of the etiology of the liver pathology can be obtained.
