The development and demonstration of a method of assessing fish populations in Lundy Island No Take Zone

Methods of assessing fish assemblages were investigated to determine the most appropriate technique to use within Lundy Island Marine Reserve. Potentially this could be incorporated into the current Natural England monitoring programme. The techniques investigated were remote imderwater video (RUV), larval surveys, imderwater visual census, acoustic surveys, and baited traps. It was decided that the most suitable method was RUV. Baited and unbaited RUV was tested in the Lundy Island Marine Nature Reserve in June/ July 2007. Fifteen-minute video samples were taken from four locations, two inside and two outside the No Take Zone (NTZ). Species richness, abvmdance, time of first animal and time of first bite were recorded from the video footage. Univariate and multivariate analyses were applied to the data. The baited video data provided plentifiil results for a rigorous statistical analysis. The unbaited data were sparse, and fewer conclusions could be drawn from the data. Location had a significant effect on abundance from the baited data, and species richness and time of first animal from the unbaited data. Significant differences in fish assemblages are thought to have been caused by habitat variation. RUV proved shnple to use, and the baited camera was considered an appropriate method of assessing fish populations. To study the effects of the NTZ a different experimental design could be used to minimise the effects of habitat variation on the data.Faculty of Scienc