Here users can start with a feature, such as horse mussel beds, and explore information on the sensitivity of that feature to pressures and their associated activities

A particular type of environment within which a plant or animal lives

Habitats

The large-scale feature category helps build ecosystem function into the network of Marine Protected Areas

Large-scale features

Species that have the ability to move, but that this movement is limited in some way

Low/limited mobility species

Species that have the ability to move freely

Mobile species

Species

Geological features formed as a result of processes occuring during the last ice age

Quaternary of Scotland

Geological features remaining on the seabed as part of past geological processes

Submarine Mass Movement

Geomorphological features formed by the action of deep-sea currents

Marine Geomorphology of the Scottish Deep Ocean Seabed

Depressions in the seabed formed as a result of the escape of fluids or gases from the seabed

Seabed Fluid and Gas Seep

Geological structures that rise from the deep-ocean seabed around Scotland

Cenozoic Structures of the Atlantic Margin

Geomorphological features formed by the action of tides and currents

Marine Geomorphology of the Scottish Shelf Seabed

Geodiversity features

Arctic tern have one of the longest migrations of any bird species and often travel between the Arctic and Antarctic each year. They breed in coastal colonies, and feed primarily on small fish from the top few centimetres of the water column.

Arctic tern (breeding)

A geomorphological feature of the seabed formed by the action of tides and currents.

Bank (unknown substrate)

The world's second largest fish (up to 10m)which has a global distribution and forms seasonal aggregations on the continental shelf of the Atlantic, including Scotland. It feeds on zooplankton, is slow to mature, has low fecundity and gives birth to live young.

Basking shark

Members of the auk family, black guillemot are a resident non-migratory species that generally remain close inshore. They nest along cliffs and offshore islands and generally feed i kelp forests.

Black guillemot

Black-throated diver is an elegant and distinctive species that typically uses sheltered coastal waters during the non-breeding season. Feeds predominantly upon fish, alongside other prey groups.

Black-throated diver (non-breeding)

A deep water fish species that forms spawning aggregations in the deep waters to the west of Scotland

Blue ling

Soft muddy sediments peppered with the burrows of burrowing animals such as the Dublin Bay prawn and populated with other animals such as sea pens and anemones

Burrowed mud

Large geological domed features formed from calcium carbonate that often host fragile species such as corals and sponges

Carbonate mound communities

Common scoter is a non-breeding visitor to Scotland that typically feeds and roosts far offshore. Forages on benthic species, mainly molluscs.

Common scoter (non-breeding)

Studies have shown that common skate are in fact two species - the blue skate and the flapper skate. It is the flapper skate that is predominantly recorded in Scottish waters. This skate is the largest in European waters and tends to live on sandy, muddy and gravel bottoms from the coast down to 600m.

Common skate

Considered as a type of offshore subtidal sand and gravel habitat. Coarse sediments such as gravel and cobbles on the continental shelf that can host a range of animals such as sponges, bryozoans, crabs and squat lobsters

Continental shelf coarse sediments

Considered as a type of offshore subtidal sand and gravel habitat. Mixed sediments from gravel and cobbles to finer sands on the continental shelf that can host a range of animals such as sponges, bryozoans, polychaete worms and sea urchins

Continental shelf mixed sediments

Considered as a type of offshore deep-sea mud habitat. Seabed sediments on the continental shelf ranging from fine silty muds to sandy muds that can host a range of animals both within and on the seabed such as polychaete worms, sea urchins and star fish 

Continental shelf muds

Considered as a type of offshore subtidal sand and gravel habitat. Sandy sediments on the continental shelf that can host a range of animals such as sea urchins, star fish and polychaete worms

Continental shelf sands

A relatively steeply sloping surface extending from the outer edge of the continental shelf to the continental rise. Please note that this is a component of the Cenozoic structures of the Atlantic Margin geodiversity feature and not the large-scale biodiversity MPA search feature which is not included within FEAST.

Continental slope 

Channels in the continental slope resulting from the scouring effect of grounded icebergs during the last ice age.

Continental slope channels

Canyons in the continental slope resulting from large scale slides and movements of sediments 

Continental slope turbidite canyons

Extensive fine grained accumulations of sediments that have accumulated over long time scales.

Contourite sand/silt

Aggregations of soft and hard coral species, found on both hard and soft bottomed seabeds

Coral gardens

Considered as a type of offshore subtidal sand and gravel habitat. Mixed sediments from gravel and cobbles to finer sands on the continental slope and abyssal plain that can host a range of animals such as sponges, bryozoans, polychaete worms and sea urchins

Deep sea mixed sediments

Considered as a type of offshore subtidal sand and gravel habitat. Muddy sands on the continental slope and abyssal plain that may host a range of animals such as sea spiders, sea urchins and polychaete worms as well as sea pens

Deep sea muddy sands

Considered as a type of offshore deep-sea mud habitat. Seabed sediments on the continental slope and abyssal plain ranging from fine silty muds to sandy muds that can host a range of animals both within and on the seabed such as polychaete worms, sea urchins and star fish 

Deep sea muds

Considered as a type of offshore subtidal sand and gravel habitat. Sandy habitats on the continental slope and abyssal plain that may host a range of aninmals such as sea urchins, star fish and anemones

Deep sea sands

Aggregations of deep water sponge species such as the glass sponge Pheronema carpentari

Deep sea sponge aggregations

The largest duck species found in Scotland. Eider is a seaduck which dives to the seabed to forage on benthic molluscs and crustaceans, primarily selecting mussels.

Eider (non-breeding)

Fan mussels are one of Britain's largest threatened molluscs. Fan mussels live with the pointed end of their shell buried in the sediment attached by fine threads made by the animal. The densest known aggregation of fan mussels in UK waters was recorded off Canna in 2009.

Fan mussel aggregations

Beds formed by the flameshell bivalve mollusc Limaria hians. Flameshells create nests of threads that provide an attachment surface for many other marine plants and animals such as hydroids, bryozoans, ascidians and seaweeds.

Flameshell beds

Depressions in the seabed resulting from the scouring effect of grounded icebergs during the last ice age

Glaciated channel/trough

Goldeneye is a medium-size duck species occurring in highest numbers during the non-breeding season, although a small population does breed in Scotland. Goldeneye dive to forage for food, mainly molluscs and crustaceans, but fish and plant material can also make up a small part of their diet.

Goldeneye (non-breeding)

The largest diver species. Spends its winters in a range of coastal habitats, preferring shallow inshore waters. Feeds on a mix of freshwater and marine prey, mainly fish.

Great northern diver (non-breeding)

Members of the auk family, guillemot are a migratory species that generally breed on coastal cliffs, and spend the rest of the year at sea. They generally feed on fish.

Guillemot (breeding)

Beds formed by the horse mussel bivalve mollusc Modiolus modiolous. The beds they form significantly modify the local habitat and provide hard substrate for the settlement of other species, refuge from predators and ecological niches for a wide range of organisms.

Horse mussel beds

Erosional furrows caused by the scouring effect of grounded icebergs during the last ice age

Iceberg ploughmark fields

A habitat found in the silty muddy basins of sea lochs and other stable deep waters. The habitat is characterised by the heart urchin Brissopsis lyrifera. The habitat supports other species including burrowing bivalve molluscs, polychaete worms and also the Dublin bay prawn (Nephrops norvegicus). 

Inshore deep mud with burrowing heart urchins

A habitat dominated primarily by sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima), bootlace weed (Chorda filum) and various red and brown seaweeds. The turfs of seaweed may support a diverse range of animals including burrowing polychaete worms, bivalve molluscs, and scavengers including hermit crabs and fish.

Kelp and seaweed communities on sublittoral sediment

Scouring caused by the landscape or glacial deposition

Landscape or aerial glacial scour 

Scotland's smallest tern species. Breeding colonies are located on beaches nearby shallow, sheltered waters which offer good foraging for small fish and invertebrates.

Little tern (breeding)

Long-tailed duck is a gregarious seaduck that forms large non-breeding flocks. Long-tailed duck dives to the seabed to forage on a range of prey including benthic molluscs, crustaceans, and small fish.

Long-tailed duck (non-breeding)

A geomorphological feature of the seabed formed by the action of tides and currents.

Longitudinal bedform field

This habitat is dominated by sugar kelp, red and green seaweeds and encrusting coralline algae growing on cobbles, boulders and rocks. The seaweeds provide food and shelter for a range of animals including sea urchins, tube-dwelling polychaete worms, sea squirts, barnacles, starfish and brittle stars.

Low or variable salinity habitats

This habitat is characterised by Nodules of the calcified red seaweed maerl. In high abundances, maerl can form loosely interlocking beds. This provides perfect living conditions for a range of marine animals including sea firs, sea urchins, brittle stars, starfish and scallops.

Maerl beds

As well as maerl, this habitat is characterised by high densities of the gravel sea cucumber Neopentadactyla mixta. Scallops, brittle stars, crabs and dragonets may live on the surface of the sediment.

Maerl or coarse sand with burrowing sea cucumbers

Large marks caused by the scouring effect of grounded icebergs during the last ice age

Megascale glacial lineations

Submarine glacial ridges, composed of poorly sorted sediments (boulders, gravels, sands and clay), which were deposited at an ice limit during the deglaciation of the last ice age. 

Moraines

Deep-water mounds formed from sediment that has been transferred to the seabed from strata that are more than 24 Ma old. The examples found in the UK in the Faroe-Shetland Channel are unusual in that they are the only mud diapirs that breach the seabed surface

Mud diapirs

A habitat made up of beds of the native oyster Ostrea edulis. A diverse community of organisms can live on and within the sediment beneath the bed including polychaete worms and sea slugs.

Native oyster beds

Feather stars are a relative of the starfish. They use their branching arms to catch passing plankton and suspended organic particles. Feather stars are commonly found on sediment, shell, gravel or bedrock. In areas of low wave action and good water flow, feather stars can form dense aggregations making up a significant component of the seabed community.

Northern featherstar aggregations on mixed substrata 

A diverse habitat made up of aggregations of the cup coral Caryophyllia smithii and the Northern sea fan Swiftia pallida on the upper and vertical surfaces of bedrock and boulders. Other animals present include keel worms, dead mans fingers, large sea squirts and feather stars.

Northern sea fan and sponge communities

Aggregations or individual examples of the long-lived mollusc Arctica islandica. The species tends to live within sandy seabed sediments

Ocean quahog (aggregations)

Orange roughy

Seabed depressions caused by the escape of fluids through the seabed

Pockmarks

Geomorphological features formed from dewatering processes associated with excess pore fluids. In Scotland's seas, the only example of this feature is recorded from the Hatton-Rockall Basin where they resemble hexagonal structures similar in appearance to dried out mud plains. 

Polygonal faults

Large sediment accumulation linked to submarine movement processes

Prograding wedge

Members of the auk family, puffin are a migratory species that generally breed in burrows on offshore islands, and spend the rest of the year at sea. They generally feed on fish, crustaceans may also form part of their diet.

Puffin (breeding)

Members of the auk family, razorbill are a migratory species that generally breed on coastal cliffs and spend the rest of the year at sea. They primarily feed on small fish including sandeel, sprat and herring.

Razorbill (breeding)

Red-breasted merganser is a diving duck, gregarious and seen in large groups during the non-breeding season. It feeds primarily on small fish along with small amounts of vegetation and aquatic invertebrates.

Red-breasted merganser (non-breeding)

The smallest of Scotland's diver species. Typically breeds on inland water bodies in open moorland or blanket bog landscapes. Feeds on a mix of freshwater and marine prey, mainly fish.

Red-throated diver (breeding)

The smallest of Scotland's diver species. Winters in a range of coastal habitats, preferring shallow inshore waters. Feeds on a mix of freshwater and marine prey, mainly fish.

Red-throated diver (non-breeding)

Sand ribbon field

Geomorphological features formed by the action of deep-ocean currents

Sand wave field

Sand wave field (shelf)

Sandbank 

A small burrowing fish that tends to be found living within sandy sediments. Sandeels are very important to the diets of many animals feeding in the North Sea

Sandeels

One of Scotland's four tern regularly breeding species. Sandwich tern colonies vary dramatically from year to year. This is due to variable breeding effort and to mass movements between alternate colony sites.

Sandwich tern (breeding)

Scaup is a gregarious winter visitor to Scotland. An omnivorous diving forager that mostly feeds upon benthic molluscs.

Scaup (non-breeding)

A depression in the seabed usually occuring around deep-ocean rises such as seamounts. The depression or 'scour moat' is caused by the effect of the deep-ocean rise on local current speeds and the direction of current flow. 

Scour moat

Areas of sediment that support dense grown of seagrasses. Dwarf eelgrass (Zostera noltii) is found highest on the shore, while the eelgrass (Zostera marina) is predominantly subtidal. Seagrass beds stabilise sediment, provide food for waterfowl and create a surface for the attachment of sea firs, seaweeds, sea anemones and stalked jellyfish.

Seagrass beds

The biological communities found on the large geological structures that are seamounts. These include a range of animals from fragile corals and sponges through to polychaete worms and sea stars that may live in association with sediments on and around seamounts

Seamount communities

A large-scale undersea topographic feature that rises steeply several hundred meters from the surrounding deep-ocean floor. Please note that this is a component of the Cenozoic structures of the Atlantic Margin geodiversity feature and not the large-scale biodiversity MPA search feature which is not included within FEAST. For information on the sensitivity of communities associated with seamounts, see 'seamount communities'. 

Seamounts 

Sediments deposited from bottom-water currents and elongated in the direction of current flow 

Sediment drift

Sediment wave field

Sediment wave field (shelf)

Shag is resident in Scotland, and is a species that shows high nesting site fidelity at its coastal colonies. A diving pursuit feeder mainly preying on sandeels.

Shag (breeding)

Shag is resident in Scotland, and in non-breeding season typically remains within 100-200km from its breeding colony site. A diving pursuit feeder mainly preying on sandeels.

Shag (non-breeding)

Slavonian grebe is an migratory species seen in the seas around Scotland in the non-breeding season. A strong swimmer and diver that feeds mainly on fish and crustaceans.

Slavonian grebe (non-breeding)

The deposition of sedimentary fans and other such features as part of submarine mass movement processes.

Slide deposits

A feature depicting the movement of large volumes of sediment as part of submarine mass movement processes

Slide scars

Depressions in the seabed which are thought to be formed by pressurised melt-water flowing beneath the ice sheet during the last ice sheet

Sub-glacial tunnel valley

Tide swept coarse and gravelly sands in the shallow subtidal which supports an abundance of bivalve molluscs, most notably Tellina spp. In some areas, the habitat also supports polychaetes, surf clams and sand hoppers.

Tide swept coarse sands with burrowing bivalves 

This habitat occurs on bedrock and mixed substrata that is swept by strong tidal currents and is dominated by seaweeds such as kelps and fucoids. As in forests on land, the fucoids create a canopy that provides shelter for a range of animals including sea squirts, sea mats and sea firs.

Tide-swept algal communities

Velvet scoter is a non-breeding visitor to Scotland that typically feeds and roosts far offshore, often in association with common scoter. Forages on benthic species, mainly molluscs.

Velvet scoter (non-breeding)

The pressure is thought to be caused by the activity and the feature is considered exposed to that activity

Associated

A feature is assessed as having high sensitivity where the pressure causes severe or significant mortality of a species population (most individuals killed). Habitat features are highly sensitive where the pressure causes severe or significant mortality of key functional or structural species or those that characterise the habitat, and/or causes changes in the habitat such that environmental conditions are changed (e.g. the habitat type is changed). If recovery is possible, the feature is anticipated to take 10 years to recover from the impacts caused by the pressure.

High

A feature is assessed as having high sensitivity where the pressure causes severe or significant mortality of a species population (most individuals killed).  Habitat features are highly sensitive where the pressure causes severe or significant mortality of key functional or structural species or those that characterise the habitat, and/or causes changes in the habitat such that environmental conditions are changed (e.g. the habitat type is changed).  If recovery is possible, the feature is anticipated to take 10 years to recover from the impacts caused by the pressure. An asterisk is used to denote an underlaying range of sensitivites for habitat features (e.g. due to the feature including species with a range of different sensitivities to a pressure) OR for species it denotes a sensitivity within certain key areas for that species - explained further in evidence. Where an asterisk follows a high sensitivity score, it denotes that the highest sensitivity score for the feature is high. 

High*

Features with low sensitivity are those with high resistance or where recovery from any impacts caused by pressure is rapid, so that the feature is recovered within two years from cessation of pressure causing activity

Features with low sensitivity are those with high resistance or where recovery from any impacts caused by pressure is rapid, so that the feature is recovered within two years from cessation of pressure causing activity. An asterisk is used to denote an underlaying range of sensitivites for habitat features (e.g. due to the feature including species with a range of different sensitivities to a pressure) OR for species it denotes a sensitivity within certain key areas for that species - explained further in evidence. Where an asterisk follows a low sensitivity score, it denotes that the highest sensitivity score for the feature is low. 

Low*

Features with medium sensitivity are those characterised by medium resistance and no to low recovery or no to low resistance and medium to high recovery. 

Medium

Features with medium sensitivity are those characterised by medium resistance and no to low recovery or no to low resistance and medium to high recovery. An asterisk is used to denote an underlaying range of sensitivites for habitat features (e.g. due to the feature including species with a range of different sensitivities to a pressure) OR for species it denotes a sensitivity within certain key areas for that species - explained further in evidence. Where an asterisk follows a medium sensitivity score, it denotes that the highest sensitivity score for the feature is medium. 

Medium*

There is no evidence available with which to undertake a sensitivity assessment or the pressure definition/benchmark is not applicable to the feature.

Not Assessed

Although the feature may be sensitive to the pressure, the activity exerting that pressure does not spatially overlap with the known distribution of the feature.

Not Exposed

There is a good level of evidence to suggest that although the feature may be exposed it is not considered to be sensitive to the pressure (i.e. where tolerance to the pressure is high where there is no significant mortality of individuals or changes to the habitat, and where recovery from any impact is complete within 2 years).

Not Sensitive

Not enough information is available to complete one of the sensitivity assessment stages to give a final score, but due to concern over potential impacts on feature it has been assessed as sensitive. 

Sensitive

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