Marine biologists at Falmouth Marine School have conducted a week of surveys around the county's shoreline.

The groups of students looked at the "benthic environment" described as the bottom of the sea floor, which incorporates the intertidal exposed zones of the coast as well. This annual research event involved all the marine biologists at the college, mixing degree and further education students together on a variety of multi-level objectives in practical and applied marine biology and ecology studies.

Marine biology course manager, Luke Marsh, said: “Survey week is in its third year with the field work taking place in some of the best locations in Cornwall. Students found themselves on the south coast’s Marazion Reef working in front of the iconic St Michael’s Mount. On another day the long golden sands at Gwithian on the north coast provided the back drop to the surveys where the students were joined by a couple of seals.”

As part of the event, students found themselves working on a selection of traditional scientific practices in the field. From measuring the morphology and characteristics of the beaches and cliffs, to assessing the diversity of organisms in the rock pools, as well as looking at changes in the distribution of species along the rocky shore before going to round up their work with a series of related experiments in the laboratories back at the marine school. There, students found themselves studying in detail organisms that they had never heard of or seen before by using a range of scientific equipment and techniques to achieve detailed technical goals to complement the field work.

Level three marine biology and ecology student, Megan Hayward-Smith, said: “Some of the species like the bryozoans, which are small filter feeders living in colonies on the algae, were cool to look at. In the water under the microscopes we could see them feeding. We used the microscopes to get some amazing images to use in our assignments too.”

Foundation degree student Chloe White added: “This kind of work is vital experience. We’re achieving a lot of descriptive data of the sites and building our knowledge. It’s fun too and why I choose to do this type of course in the first place.”

The benthic survey week is one of two of these type of events the students at Falmouth Marine School carry out. The second, Pelagic survey week, is focused on the open water where again the students will be out along the coast and on the water on boats collecting samples and data to profile open water species and oceanographic features.

Luke concluded: “It’s a perfect learning experience, using the outside classroom that the range of ecosystems that Cornwall provides and doing some great science too. Students love it and so do the staff.”

The second survey week will take place at the end of the academic year. The marine school is looking to continue building its collection of the data for both of these large scale annual surveys, some of which will be used towards academic literature in the future.