Seasearch is looking to illustrate its new identification guide to British and Irish seaweeds, being written by Francis Bunker and due out in about a year’s time.
Impetus for the book was that “most of our Seasearchers [diving research project volunteers] are not very good at identifying seaweeds”, despite the fact that seaweeds are “often the dominant life forms in shallow waters”.
Seasearch is looking for help from diving photographers in collecting “sparkling seaweed images to go in the book”. But, it warns, they are “not easy subjects to photograph well”. So there’s the gauntlet, thrown down firmly on the seafloor!
Another, growing source of seaweeds information is the recently launched web source British Isles Seaweed Images, produced by Bunker and others, with links to the Natural History Museum’s Seaweeds of the British Isles series.
The new source is intended to be “an interactive colour photographic guide with text to illustrate a wide selection of the marine algae of the British Isles”, on both the web and, eventually, DVD.
Seasearch’s book will be geared specifically toward diving research and the species in which Seasearch is interested. Clearly, however, photos supplied by divers for the book project may also be of interest for the academic records.
Details of species images of which are needed by Seasearch can be downloaded from the news section of its website.
Seasearch - www.seasearch .org
British Isles Seaweed Images – www.weedseen.co.uk
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