A Preliminary Survey of the Small Natant Fauna in the Vicinity of the Sea Floor off Blyth, Northumberland

Compared to the very large volume of work done on the fauna of the pelagic and benthonic habitats in the sea, the small natant fauna immediately above the sea floor has received rather scant attention as an ecological entity. Nevertheless enough material has been accumulated by a number of workers all over the world at various times to indicate that this fauna is often both diverse in species and abundant in numbers, and undoubtedly plays an important role in the economy of the sea. Collections taken by Holt off Ireland, by Russell in the English Channel, and by Wilson off New England, all using fine nets mounted on or inside trawl nets (e.g. Russell 1928), should be especially mentioned in this connection (Holt & Tattersall 1905, Calman 1906, Tattersall 1906, Wilson 1932, p. 4, Tattersall 1938). Important studies were also made by many authors on this fauna as a constituent of fish food, for instance Blegvad (1917), Hertling (1938), Shorygin (1952), to mention only a few. Greze (1951) used a sled net with closing device for investigations of bottom plankton in relation to fish food in the estuaries of the Yenisei and other rivers. In addition, collecting gear, mostly sled nets with or without closing devices, has also been made and used by a number of other workers (Reighard 1894, p. 130; see also Welch 1948, p. 309); Hensen 1895, Beauchamp 1932, Elster 1933, Walford 1938, Werner 1938, Bossanyi 1951, Wickstead 1953, Colman & Segrove 1955; also Hardy & Lucas (at Hull), Beyer (Oslo) and Motoda (Hakodate)-personal communications). The present paper contains the results of a preliminary survey of this fauna as collected with the apparatus previously described by the present author (Bossanyi 1951).