Demersal Fish Community

Over 240 species of fish inhabit the seas around Scotland. Assessing their overall 'health' is difficult: defining 'health' is problematic and there are large gaps in the data. With this in mind, Marine Scotland Science undertook an investigation into the state of the demersal (generally living on or near the sea bed) fish community in Scottish waters. This work was done specifically for Scotland’s Marine Atlas 2011. However, it employed a similar approach to comparable assessments for the UK's Charting Progress 2 (2010) and OSPAR's Quality Status Report (2010).