NATIONAL MARINE BIOLOGICAL AQC SCHEME / BEQUALM
23rd April, 10.00-15.00
Teleconference
Attending: David Johns (DJ, Chair, SAHFOS), Tim Mackie (TM, NI EA), Claire Mason (CM,
CEFAS), Clare Scanlan (CS, SEPA), Astrid Fischer (AF, Technical Secretary, SAHFOS),
Matthew Green (MG, Natural Resouces Wales), Dan Bayley (DB, JNCC), Mandy Prior
(MP, Finance Manager, EA), Jim Ellis (JE, CEFAS), Contractors.
Apologies: Myles O’Reilly (MoR, SEPA ), Keith Cooper (KC, CEFAS), Joe Silke (JS, MI),
Rafael Salas (RS, MI)
Last Meeting Actions
Astrid:
 Put all documents for meetings on committee area and to provide committee
members with login details. For large documents an FTP server can be used, send
around details. Done.
 Provide summary statements on the standards where possible. Outstanding. There
are no summaries, just keywords for each standard. I am revising the document to
include these.
 Send participants’ contact details to Matt, and Carol. Done by Mandy.
 Put epibiota draft document on Committee part of NMBAQC website. Done.
 Draft a paragraph on Membership only option for CMAs only and circulate. Done by
Mandy.
David:
 Send around the latest MSFD monitoring document. Done.
 Send link for the Plymouth deep sea species database available on the Marlin web
site. Done.
 Talk to Joe Silke for taking the zooplankton component further. Done.
Myles:




Produce a draft document together with RA that outlines the problems
using WORMS or ERMS using scaleworms and other polychaetes to
highlight issues. Draft 1 was done by Richard Arnolds. Draft 2 is still in my
head. I want explore this further with some possible input from new inverts
contractor.
Send photos for video analysis to TM. Not done, but too late for it now.
Investigate & pass on names for epibiota contacts within Marine
Scotland(try Mike Robertson ), Scottish Natural Heritage (not sure try
Laura.Clark@SNH.gov.uk )or SAMS (no idea – try Mike Burrows) to Dan.
Also contact SEPA Dingwall aquaculture staff (mhairi.wilson@sepa.org.uk
and naveed.bhatti@sepa.org.uk ) .
Give
David
contact
names
for
zooplankton
sampling
(Malcolm.baptie@sepa.org.uk )
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Carol:
 Send TM some videos and supporting assessment. Not done, but too late for it now.
 Check internal documents for guidance on transport of benthic invertebrate samples
Claire Mason:
• Send photos for video analysis to TM. Done.
• Meet with Graham Phillips to look at effect of PSA on the IQI. Has had a discussion
with Graham about the IQI tool. The main problem is when the PSA drives the result.
The tool assumes unimodal distribution, but there should be an option to check if
your result is bimodal. Graham is going to send some more workbooks for Claire to
try. She will follow up with a further meeting after her research cruise.
• Circulate
PSA
paper
(Barrio
Frojan
&
Mason,
2010).
http://www.cefas.defra.gov.uk/media/462507/mepf%200804%20east%20coast%20
addendum%20report.pdf
Clare Scanlan:
 Collate some ID guidance on seagrass to draft a standard for the NMBAQC web site.
Has received information from Mandy but not done anything with it yet. Clare S to
draft a document which then can be put up on the NMBAQC web site (Mandy is
happy with the EA information to be used in this document).
 Keep an eye on MSFD tool developments including rocky intertidal and kelp depth
tools, possibly through HBDSEG reps. Has tried but not received any information
from HBDSEG.
 Discuss the tender for macroalgae with Mandy. Outstanding. Biomass exercise
specification may need a rethink as this component receives a lot of feedback.
 Provide David with contact names for zooplankton sampling and pass on MSS’
comments. Done.
Mandy:
 Add on this year’s participants to contact list and send onwards to Astrid, Matt and
Carol. Done.
 Discuss the tender for macroalgae with Clare. Outstanding. Mandy to check when
the contract runs out.
 Send Clare a list of EA area teams (which labs are the same despite different names).
Done.
Richard/Ruth:
• Send Clare overseas benthic participants’ contact details. Done.
• Talk to Doug Herdson at Pices, who runs the power station fish monitoring
programme about attaining fish samples for ring tests.
Matt:
 Contact people about the assignment of juveniles. Has contacted all labs, has heard
back from 8 but there are some large labs he hasn’t heard back from. APEM, UNICO
and Fugro are still to reply. There appear to be some differences in methodology.
Tim:

Send sediment photos to Claire before workshop so that Claire’s workshop
participants can assess sediment type from photos. Done.
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

Check internal documents for guidance on transport of benthic invertebrate
samples. Recommends to double bag samples in an Arco box with adsorbent to
prevent leakage.
Consider alternative options for funding the Macroalgae workshop.
All:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Send photos of sediment types to Tim. Tim did receive pictures and video, and has
used this in an exercise ‘pin the tail to the donkey’ at the PSA workshop and also at
the physical damage workshop in Plymouth. The results are broken down into
novice, intermediate and expert analyst, and for the physical damage workshop also
separated into lab and field analysts. Tim is processing the results and once finished
will upload these on the Citadel Hill FTP server. He is awaiting one PSA result but the
machine for analysis broke down.
Send current protocols to Astrid so that she can hold a library of relevant
documents. Outstanding.
Let Astrid know which standards are relevant and which ones are not. Outstanding.
Send responses on assigning juveniles back to Matt – by date of next meeting. I
have contacted all labs, I have heard back from 8 but there are some large labs I
haven’t heard back from. APEM, UNICO and Fugro are still to reply. There are appear
to be some differences in methodology.
Review the JNCC on epi-benthic video and still analysis method development
document and return comments to Dan, by 28th February. Comments received from
NRW and NE.
If anyone gets ≥ 15 numbers of an unusual fish species, could they collect them and
use them for a Fish ringtest exercise. Outstanding.
Minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting were approved. Action Astrid to put these up on the web.
Priorities from HBDSEG
We have been tasked to update our workplan. Action ALL to send comments to David Johns
and Astrid.
Update Prue Addison document with recent British Standards
Astrid asked everyone to have a look at the revised document she sent out. She can ask the
BSI to clarify the contents of 10 standards so if we all choose 10 we would be interested in to
know more about, the ones with the most votes will be selected. Action ALL to send
comments to Astrid.
Phytoplankton update
The registrations are currently open and the timescales for the 2014 exercise are:
Friday, 2nd May 2014 Deadline for Registration
Friday, 30th May 2014 Samples sent to analysts
Monday, 30th June 2014 Deadline for submission of results to lead laboratory
Dates to be arranged Intercalibration Report and Workshop
We also had a query BEQUALM website run by CEFAS. Raf contacted Tom Fisher about
updating the information on the phytoplankton component in the website but this is not
going to be possible from their side. Is anybody else in charge of updating this website
now?? Is it even functioning anymore, and is NMBAQC still aligned to BEQUALM?
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Regarding the BEQUALM web site- Astrid has asked David Lees from Cefas to link the
BEQUALM web site directly to the NMBAQC web site so that she can do any required
updates. There are now only general statements on the BEQUALM web site, see
http://www.bequalm.org/community.htm; http://www.bequalm.org/nmbaqc.htm and
http://www.bequalm.org/contact.htm.
Action Mandy to ask Sarah Peaty about the current status of BEQUALM. CSEG may have a
representative on BEQUALM.
Contractors update- Thomson Ecology
Update on Year 20 (2013/2014 work on Fish, Benthic Inverts and PSA)
Thomson produced a report for the meeting. The Own Samples for year 19 are almost
completed, 27 reports are finished. RT44 was taxonomically challenging in a number of
species. The reports are currently being updated with the comments from Myles. The results
from RT45 are being reviewed internally and then forwarded to Myles. RT46 is being
analysed now, and although there were some late submissions, all the results have now
been received. The MB21 exercise will shortly be circulated to participants. LR18: there are 3
samples outstanding. OS53-55 year 20 exercises, one lab signed up late in February. There
are 6 submissions outstanding, 3 private and 3 government agencies. The PS48/49 is readyAdam Proctor to send to the new PSA Contract Manager Claire M for comment.
Fish update for 2014/2015 including Fish workshop ideas.
There is an idea for a third ringtest to include fish larvae, which is in the planning stage.
Sarah Hussey will be the one to lead on this from Thomson. A Fish workshop is currently in
the planning for late 2014 or early 2015, 2.5 days, 12 participants, with lead/support: Steve
Coates & Peter Henderson.
Regarding the ring tests, the idea was raised to send the tests out in February and calibrate
our timetable so that all reports are done by April, but dependent on survey needs if this is
at all possible. From EA perspective the RRT timing should be Sept-Nov. Action Jim to
contact Sarah and discuss.
PSA update
Workshop held in February and further workshop needs for next year
We held a very successful workshop in February. Claire is putting together the notes and
recommendations on what we should focus on in guidance. There will also be a link to the
paper that Tim is producing regarding his ‘put the tail on the donkey’ test. The results will be
sent to all the workshop participants. Claire hopes to finish the notes and recommendations
shortly.
Claire has also had a discussion with Graham regarding the fail/pass criteria in the IQ tool.
Tim mentioned that there has been some interest from the physical damage workshop in
this IQI tool exercise and that it would be worthwhile to have it available on the NMBAQC
web site.
Claire is working on some graphic guidance on different sediment types- the labs are
probably consistent within the lab but it may not be the same as everyone else’s results.
She’s going to use the materials (photo/video/analysis) already used for the workshop to
produce some form of guidance.
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The new PSA own sample module. We should put some thought into how we are going to roll
this out.
Claire will have some discussion with David Hall to work this out. Participants have most
trouble with diamicton (mixed sediment) samples and less problems with sand, so it will be
worthwhile to include diamicton samples in each ring test.
Benthic Invertebrates update
Workshop needs for next year
This year an expert workshop will have to be held. Further details will be given by Apem Ltd.
Contractors update- APEM Ltd
PSA and benthic inverts update for 2014/2015 including workshop ideas.
David Hall circulated a report before the meeting. Apem have started the preparations for
the ring tests and are awaiting the handover excel files and data return sheets, and previous
data reports. There should also be some workshop notes from previous benthic workshops
with information on caprellids and syllids. Action Myles/ Mandy to sort out the transfer of
files.
The protocols have been written and a dedicated email address, which can be accessed by 34 people, has been set up for participant communication with APEM. We will revert to the
original way of marking up RT exercises, where synonyms are noted but not marked as
incorrect.
Action David to arrange to see Claire Mason regarding the PSA component.
David would like to have a dedicated web site page where we can put our own data and
stage of where samples are. A quarterly mirror drive of data will be send to the contract
manager for info and as a security measure (backup). Apem Ltd will keep a log of all
communication and will send out a quarterly questionnaire among participants to find out if
they are happy with the way the scheme is run. For the own sample module we should add
scoring to notable taxa which may be low in number but significant and currently not picked
up by own sample pass/fail criteria.
There will be a designated taxa list and a procedure on how to assign juveniles. We will need
to be strict on deadlines, data needs to be in by a certain date, and samples need to be sent
in by a certain date. A mechanism for reminders will be in place.
Macroalgae 12:55-13:15
The macroalgae ringtest deadline has been extended. There was a difference of opinion on
one of the taxa, but the reports should be ready for the original deadline. The biomass %
cover test and saltmarsh test have also been extended until the end of March, to help out
staff affected by the flooding this year. We are working on the reports of these exercises.
Workshop needs for next year
The workshop didn’t get any funding from HBDSEG. As there is a lot of preparation work
involved for the workshop, Clare had hoped to outsourced this work to Emma Wells. Emma
has offered to put the dataset together from the %cover work to see how differences in
methodology can affect results.
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NIEA has offered to hold the workshop there 26th-27th August. We would also be able to get
the Southern Ireland hovercraft involved for this workshop. We would have to gauge
interest and to see if people would still be able to attend, especially with the recent cutbacks
at the EA. Action Mandy to find out how many EA staff can attend.
The EA is still gearing up for the Saltmarsh ringtest. There is a contract in place to provide a
test for 13 people, max 15 people. The format of the test would be straightforward photo
test, similar to the rocky algae test. It will probably also be useful as a training exercise.
Action Mandy to send out ballpark figure for the test.
Epibiota update 13:15-13:30
Update on epi-benthic video and still analysis best practise guide
Dan has received comments from NRW and NE. JNCC is looking into how we can further
structure the document and what needs to be included. A second draft should hopefully be
ready by the end of May for comments by the next meeting. Action all to comment on
second draft. The document will then be passed to all interested parties to comment.
Fish update
Jim is waiting to see the Thomson reports to comment on.
Issues that need addressing for next year:
Firstly, the ring tests, in which specimens are sent out to participating laboratories. These
may be bias towards those species that are collected in sufficient numbers (i.e. some of the
less common fish may be excluded due to insufficient sample size) and/or fish of certain
sizes (shipping/ handling/ storage costs for larger species may be a problem). One way of
addressing this would be for a fish identification course/test at one institute, with members
travelling (travel/accommodation costs would be offset by not having to ship samples
around the country). This could be done every ‘x’ years, with the normal tests carried out in
intervening years. ID issues were also discussed by ICES and fish bodies. We could have a
photographic or video test along with the ring test, as a training exercise, ‘test yourself on
these 5 specimens’ for some less frequently seen taxa.
Secondly, training courses. There have been recent courses on shallow coastal fishes and
gobies, but maybe we should try and arrange a more long-term plan of training needs and
courses, so that important taxonomic or functional groups could be identified and prioritised
(e.g. ichthyoplankton, sand eels, scorpaeniforms, skates and rays, wrasse etc.). It would be
good to have participants input into this.
Thirdly, the pass/fail criteria for fish test will have to be developed and implemented this
year. For inverts the Bray-Curtis score method is used. For many laboratories gobies, small
dragonets and sandeels can be stumbling blocks.
Workshop needs for next year
There will be a fish workshop arranged by Thomson Ecology. The workshop should not
coincide with dates of other fish workshops. Action Jim to discuss and give the go-ahead.
Action Mandy to get involved with the call for participants.
Zooplankton update
David has spoken to Joe about how to develop the zooplankton component. SAHFOS is
currently running some in-house test and we could use the results from these to set up a
Page 6 of 7
small ringtest, UK only, to interested parties. Astrid has put a notice for expressions of
interest on the application note for 2014-2015. We have already received interest from
Cefas, PML, Marine Scotland and SEPA. There will also be a zooplankton course held at
SAHFOS, probably summer 2015, and we could tie this in with NMBAQC zooplankton
standard developments too.
AOB
Contractors representative
Carol send around expressions of interest from three candidates. The committee felt that
more information was needed. Action Astrid to find out if their companies support their
application financially, if they are open, pro-active and inclusive, and send answers back to
committee for selection.
Year 2014-2015 Info & Aplication note approval
The timings of the various components will need to be re-addressed to ensure that reports
can be finished by the end of the financial year. Action Clare, Jim, Myles and Claire to discuss
with contractors and feedback information to Astrid.
Annual report Year 18 approval
For PSA there is an issue with the Year 18 annual report- from Claire Mason: Just reading
through PSA part of YR18 – PS43 . ‘For participating laboratories using the NMBAQC method
the derived statistic for the % silt ranged from 1.39% to 89.396%’. This sentence needs
qualifying – this result clearly demonstrates some of the laboratories not following
methodology (not sieving at 0.5phi intervals, completing laser analysis only) but also that
there are some laboratories whose results are questionable’. Action Claire to rewrite this
paragraph and send to Astrid.
Saltmarsh report
Niall Phelan is still finishing the document, and this should be ready very soon. Action Mandy
to circulate once ready.
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