Scilly Research Articles

The drowning of ‘Lyonesse’: early legends of land submergence in southwest Britain and geoscience

ABSTRACT Stories about a submerged land named Lyonesse abound in culture traditions of Southwest Britain and plausibly derive from memories of land loss within the Scilly Isles. We review Lyonesse stories, their links to Arthurian romances and Greek/Roman accounts of the Cassiterides, and trace their divergent evolution. From this region’s history of land-sea movements and human occupation, we propose Lyonesse stories originated more than 4000 years ago when rising sea level divided a single inhabited island in the Scilly group. The comparable antiquity of similar stories is a compelling reason for supposing Lyonesse stories originated from observations of submergence encoded in cultural memories through oral traditions that endured in intelligible form for several millennia to reach us today.

Sex identification of a Late Iron Age sword and mirror cist burial from Hillside Farm, Bryher, Isles of Scilly, England

A burial dating to the 1st century BCE was found in 1999 in the Isles of Scilly, south-west England. As well as being the most richly furnished burial in the region, it has grave goods considered to have oppositional gender associations: martial items (sword, shield) plus a bronze mirror. The inability to determine sex from the poorly surviving skeletal remains, using morphological or the available genomic methods at the time of its discovery, has been recognised as a key difficulty in the interpretation of this significant burial for Iron Age studies. Here, we apply high throughput DNA sequencing and analysis of dental enamel peptides to the highly degraded human remains in efforts to determine sex. The former effectively showed that no useable aDNA survived in the remains; the latter identified the sex as female with ca. 96% probability. This demonstrates the value of dental enamel peptide analysis for establishing the sex of ancient remains in circumstances where survival of skeletal remains is marginal and when diagenesis has effectively eliminated aDNA. Understanding symbolism in ancient burial rites, and hence making inferences concerning the social identities of the deceased is very difficult. These difficulties are not resolvable by biomolecular analyses. However, the sex identified from the proteomic work adds to the reconstruction of the biological identity of the interred individual, and helps to provide a firmer basis upon which debates concerning her social identity can be conducted. We discuss the funerary treatment of the interred individual in terms of her possible social persona, especially the meaning of the martial items for her potential role in Iron Age warfare.

Diffuse and concentrated nitrogen sewage pollution in island environments with differing treatment systems

Macroalgae is an under-utilised tool as a bioindicator of anthropogenic nitrogen loading to the coastal environment in the UK. This study compared two island systems—Jersey (Channel Islands) and St Mary’s (Isles of Scilly) to assess how differing sewerage infrastructure affects nitrogen loading. A total of 831 macroalgae samples of Fucus vesiculosus and Ulva sp. were analysed for nitrogen isotopes (δ15N). Elevated δ15N values were recorded for Jersey (> 9‰) in St Aubin’s Bay—caused by the outflow of the Bellozanne Sewerage Treatment Works (STW). δ15N isoplots maps indicate low diffusion of nitrogen out of St Aubin’s Bay. St Mary’s produced a varied δ15N isoplot map in comparison. δ15N was typically lower and is attributed to a smaller population and inefficient STW. Outflow of sewage/effluent at Morning Point, Hugh Town and Old Town produced elevated δ15N values in comparison to the island average. St Mary’s inefficient sewerage treatment and reliance on septic tanks/soakaways complicates δ15N interpretation although it still indicates that nitrogen pollution is an island-wide issue. Future sewerage development and upgrades on islands are required to prevent similar effluent environmental issues as recorded in St Aubin’s Bay. This study advocates the use of macroalgae as a bioindicator of nitrogen effluent in the marine environment.

Insights obtained from a multidecadal citizen science scheme: grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) strandings in Cornwall and Isles of Scilly (2000–2020)

Abstract Changes in abundance and distribution of marine top predators can indicate environmental change or anthropogenic pressure requiring management response. Here, we used an extensive dataset (21 years) to conduct a spatial and temporal analysis of grey seal strandings in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, close to the southern edge of the breeding range of the species. A total of 2007 strandings were reported from 2000 to 2020, increasing by 474% from 35 to 201 individuals per year during this period. The continued rise in strandings was consistent across all life stages and timeframes (5, 10 and 20 years), underpinning the suggestion of increasing abundance in the region. The observed seasonality differed by life stage, coinciding with the increased presence of animals near the coast for key life phases such as breeding, moulting and pupping. Strandings are widely distributed across the coast of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly; however, most strandings were recorded on the north coast of Cornwall (70%) where major pupping and haul out sites are found. Despite hosting several pupping and haul out sites, a small proportion was recorded on the Isles of Scilly (5%) where it is thought that strandings are particularly underreported. Describing baselines in magnitude of strandings and life-stage compositions across space and time allows future deviations in frequency, demographic composition or spatial distribution to be detected and investigated. We demonstrate the utility of long-term citizen science data to provide valuable and cost-effective information on the distribution and abundance of a highly mobile marine mammal.

Variations in Monthly Maximum Gust Speed at St Mary's, Isles of Scilly (UK)

AbstractLong‐term variations in maximum gust speeds have been analyzed using wind measurements recorded at St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, UK, and possible drivers of recent changes have been investigated. A rigorous homogenization procedure has been applied to the wind records to remove discontinuities mainly caused by non‐climatic changes. Trends in magnitude of the homogenized annual and monthly maximum gust speeds have been subsequently estimated. A significant (p < 0.10) decreasing trend of −0.102 m s−1/10 years is exhibited by the annual maximum gust speeds over the period 1928–2011, while a non‐significant (p > 0.10) positive trend characterizes the entire period 1928–2020 of wind measurements. A turning point has been detected in the monthly maximum gust speed series in 2012, followed by a trend reversal. Distinctive differences in the gust trend pattern have been observed among the seasons, with increasing trend in summer, and winter gust speeds exhibiting decline in 1969–2011 and strengthening since 2012. Variations in the monthly maximum gust speeds appear closely related to changes in air temperature and latitudinal pressure gradients. Furthermore, the monthly maximum gust speeds show significant correlation with the main oceanic‐atmospheric circulation patterns in the North Atlantic region. A synergistic effect among the phases of the dominant patterns of climate variability appears to explain the observed decline and recovery trends in winter gusts. Summer gust speeds show a positive correlation with the global land‐ocean temperature deviations from the corresponding 1951–1980 base period mean.

Migratory hoverflies orientate north during spring migration.

Migratory hoverflies are long-range migrants that, in the Northern Hemisphere, move seasonally to higher latitudes in the spring and lower latitudes in the autumn. The preferred migratory direction of hoverflies in the autumn has been the subject of radar and flight simulator studies, while spring migration has proved to be more difficult to characterize owing to a lack of ground observations. Consequently, the preferred migratory direction during spring has only been inferred from entomological radar studies and patterns of local abundance, and currently lacks ground confirmation. Here, during a springtime arrival of migratory insects onto the Isles of Scilly and mainland Cornwall, UK, we provide ground proof that spring hoverfly migrants have an innate northward preference. Captured migratory hoverflies displayed northward vanishing bearings when released under sunny conditions under both favourable wind and zero-wind conditions. In addition, and unlike autumn migrants, spring individuals were also able to orientate when the sun was obscured. Analysis of winds suggests an origin for insects arriving on the Isles of Scilly as being in western France. These findings of spring migration routes and preferred migration directions are likely to extend to the diverse set of insects found within the western European migratory assemblage.

Seagrass ‘fairy circles’ on the Isles of Scilly

AbstractPerfectly circular patches bare of vegetation in otherwise continuous swards of seagrass, and perfect circles of seagrass with lush fringes of shoots on the outer margins but with virtually bare centres, have both attracted popular attention as ‘fairy circles’ or ‘fairy rings’ in view of the folklore surrounding the supernatural origins of their terrestrial fungal counterparts. Aerial photographic and satellite surveys show that, on the Isles of Scilly, circles of Zostera marina of the second type occur sporadically, with exceptionally prolific clusters in specific localities associated with the colonization of bare substratum after disturbance, gradually disappearing over the period of this study at one site and appearing at another. Their abundance is the highest recorded anywhere in the world. Early suggestions that they represent seaweed growth on the stones of ancient hut-circles, submerged for centuries as a result of sea-level rise, are refuted. It is argued that they result from the unrestricted clonal growth of genets arising from individual Zostera seedlings, expanding equally in two dimensions and colonizing vacant habitat, with the older central shoots senescing and dying. Diameters of the circles constitute a stepwise increase in size, and the growth increments may represent a similar rate of seasonal growth in consecutive years, implying a linear rhizome growth rate of ~2.5 m year−1, which would be exceptional for Zostera marina, but which is supported by an observation on circles exposed on a low spring tide and would be an evolutionary adaptation for rapid recolonization in such a physically disturbed environment.

How local partnerships to improve urgent and emergency care have impacted delayed transfers of care from hospitals in England: an analysis based on a synthetic control estimation method

ObjectivesPatients should be discharged from hospital when they are medically fit. However, discharges are often delayed for non-medical reasons including access to social care. One aim of local health and...

The influence of artificial selection on wing spot sizes, and the relationship between forewing and hindwing spots in the Meadow Brown Butterfly Maniola jurtina (Linnaeus, 1758), ssp. cassiteridum Graves, 1930 ab. anticrassipuncta Leeds, 1950 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae, Satyrinae)

Four generations of butterflies were reared from two female Maniola jurtina (Linnaeus, 1758) with enlarged apical spots (ab. anticrassipuncta Leeds, 1950) captured on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, UK in 2013. The aim was to see how far this character could be developed through inbreeding. Previous work by Brakefield & van Noordwijk (1985) has looked at the relationship between forewing and hindwing spotting. The specimens retained from this experiment offered an opportunity to assess the correlation between the forewing spot size, additional forewing spots and hindwing spot size and number. A correlation was found between the area of the forewing spot and the number of additional spots, on both forewings and hindwings. A correlation was also found between the area of the apical spot and the summed area of all hindwing spots. However, when apical spot size was tested against an individual hindwing spot, a correlation in size was found in the male, but this was of far lower value in the female.

UK meteotsunamis: a revision and update on events and their frequency

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EHealth technologies and the know-do gap: exploring the role of knowledge mobilisation

Background: eHealth technologies are widely believed to contribute to improving health and patients’ experience of care and reducing health system costs. While many studies explore barriers to and facilitators of eHealth innovation, we lack understanding of how this knowledge can be translated into workable, practicable and properly resourced knowledge mobilisation (KM) strategies. Aims and objectives: This paper describes the aims, methods and outputs of a large European Union funded project (eHealth Productivity and Innovation in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (EPIC)) to support the development of a sustainable innovation ecosystem in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, in order to explore how knowledge mobilisation activities can help bridge the know-do gap in eHealth. Conclusions: Preparatory knowledge sharing, linkage making and capacity building are necessary preliminaries to co-production, with an emphasis on capturing the uses to which patients, carers and health workers want to put new technologies rather than promoting new technology for its own sake. Financial support can play a key role in supply-side dynamics, although the contextual and organisational barriers to eHealth innovation in England should not be underestimated.

To Investigate the Frequency of Patient Identity Validation when First Registering with a Dental Practice in the British Isles (UK)

Aims: The aim of this study is to investigate the frequency of patient identity validation when they first register with a dental practice in the British Isles. Methods: The study reviewed responses made by 123 dental practices across mainland UK, including the Highlands and Islands, comprising Northern Ireland, Scilly Isles, Isle of Man, Channel Isles, Western Isles, Shetland Isles, Hebrides, and the Orkney Isles, to the question, “When a new patient first registers with your practice, is any proof of identity required before they are able to book an appointment and see a clinician?” Results: In total, 1156 UK dental practices (approx. 9.62% of total number of UK dental practices) were polled, and of the 123 practices who responded to the questionnaire, 120 reported not asking new patients for any form of formal identification, and 3 practices (2.44% of the respondents) reported requesting formal photographic ID, before enrolling new patients. Conclusion: With only three of the practices out of 123 respondents surveyed asking for proof of identity when new patients enroll at that practice, there does appear to be a disparity between the legal weight that dental records hold in the process of identification of human remains, relative to the level of proof of identity from which the former is taken.

Natural phonetic tendencies and social meaning: Exploring the allophonic raising split ofpriceandmouthon the Isles of Scilly

AbstractThe existence of an allophonic split between raised onsets before voiceless consonants and more open onsets in other environments is well-established for the vowels in thepricelexical set. It has also been observed—less frequently—for the vowels in themouthlexical set. We provide evidence of this allophonic raising split in the English spoken on the Isles of Scilly (a group of islands off the southwest coast of England) where the pattern is more robust formouththanprice. We propose that the allophonic raising split on Scilly is the outcome of dialect contact and natural phonetic tendencies, as observed elsewhere. However, by reflecting on the specifics of the location studied, and drawing on a perception study, we hypothesise that the trajectory of the pattern may be the consequence of the different social and regional qualities indexed bymouthandpriceand the interaction of these meanings with ideologies about Scilly and its speakers.

Postglacial recolonization and Holocene diversification of Crocidura suaveolens (Mammalia, Soricidae) on the north-western fringe of the European continent

Phenotypic variation was characterized in 187 modern and archaeological specimens of the lesser white-toothed shrew (Crocidura suaveolens), obtained from both insular and continental European locations. Geometric morphometric methods were used to quantify variation in size and shape of the mandible. The phenotypic distance between populations, and the influence of several eco-geographical factors on the size and shape of the mandible in island populations, were assessed. Based on mandible shape divergence, the populations of C. suaveolens were clustered into continental, insular Atlantic and insular Mediterranean groups. Archaeological specimens from Molène Island, more than 3400 years old, display a mandible shape signal closer to that of the continental population than those of modern island populations. Conversely, the continental shape signals of the modern populations from Höedic and Sark suggest that these are relatively recent anthropogenic introductions. The populations of C. suaveolens from both the Atlantic and Mediterranean islands (except for Rouzic and Cyprus) show a significant increase in mandible size, compared to those from continental Europe. Significant phenotypic differences support the indigenous condition of C. suaveolens on most of the Atlantic islands, suggesting that the species arrived there before the separation of the Scilly Isles and Ushant from the continent due to the post-glacial rise in sea level. This provides an ante quem for its colonization of the north-western fringe of continental Europe, notwithstanding its absence from the region in the present day.

The new Flora of the Isles of Scilly

The new Flora of the Isles of Scilly

Ocean Wanderers: Extralimital Encounters with Bowhead Whales (Balaena mysticetus) in Temperate European Shallow Waters

Reports of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) outside the Arctic Circle are scarce. On 15 May 2016, a juvenile bowhead whale was recorded in shallow water in Mount's Bay (Cornwall, UK) much further south than the species' normal dis- tribution. Fifteen months earlier, another such sighting was made involving a juvenile bowhead whale in the shallow water of an offshore island, St Martin's (Isles of Scilly, Cornwall), only 60 km from Mount's Bay. Other observations of suspected/confirmed immature bowhead whales include (1) an unconfirmed sighting involving a whale without a dorsal fin off Cornwall (13 May 2016), (2) a confirmed sighting off France (10 May 2016), and (3) a confirmed sighting in Carlingford Lough (border of Northern Ireland/ Republic of Ireland; 29 May 2016). These extra- limital encounters present the first confirmed sightings of bowhead whales within temperate European waters. Apart from the whale sighted in 2015, the sightings in 2016 probably all involve the same juvenile whale. Indeed, photographs depicting natural scars/marks suggest that the Carlingford Lough bowhead whale is the same individual as the Mount's Bay. The whale was displaying behaviour indicative of ram feeding in a sheltered, shallow bay (< 10 m water depth). Do these records present vagrant animals from nearby endangered Arctic stocks? Whatever trig- gered these immature bowhead whales to venture well outside the Arctic Circle remains unknown, yet these observations suggest an unexpected adaptability to foraging in temperate shallow waters.

New age constraints for the limit of the British–Irish Ice Sheet on the Isles of Scilly

ABSTRACTThe southernmost terrestrial extent of the Irish Sea Ice Stream (ISIS), which drained a large proportion of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet, impinged on to the Isles of Scilly during Marine Isotope Stage 2. However, the age of this ice limit has been contested and the interpretation that this occurred during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) remains controversial. This study reports new ages using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of outwash sediments at Battery, Tresco (25.5 ± 1.5 ka), and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating of boulders overlying till on Scilly Rock (25.9 ± 1.6 ka), which confirm that the ISIS reached the Isles of Scilly during the LGM. The ages demonstrate this ice advance on to the northern Isles of Scilly occurred at ∼26 ka around the time of increased ice‐rafted debris in the adjacent marine record from the continental margin, which coincided with Heinrich Event 2 at ∼24 ka. OSL dating (19.6 ± 1.5 ka) of the post‐glacial Hell Bay Gravel at Battery suggests there was then an ∼5‐ka delay between primary deposition and aeolian reworking of the glacigenic sediment, during a time when the ISIS ice front was oscillating on and around the Llŷn Peninsula, ∼390 km to the north. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Journal of Quaternary Science Published by John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

EB Ford revisited: assessing the long-term stability of wing-spot patterns and population genetic structure of the meadow brown butterfly on the Isles of Scilly

Understanding selection in the wild remains a major aim of evolutionary ecology and work by Ford and colleagues on the meadow brown butterfly Maniola jurtina did much to ignite this agenda. A great deal of their work was conducted during the 1950s on the Isles of Scilly. They documented island-specific wing-spot patterns that remained consistent over about a decade, but patterns on some islands changed after environmental perturbation. It was suggested that these wing-spot patterns reflected island-specific selection and that there was little migration between islands. However, genetic studies to test the underlying assumption of restricted migration are lacking and it is also unknown whether the originally described wing-spot patterns have persisted over time. We therefore collected female butterflies from five of Ford’s original study locations, including three large islands (St Mary’s, St Martin’s and Tresco) and two small islands (Tean and St Helen’s). Wing-spot patterns had not changed appreciably over time on three of the islands (two large and one small), but were significantly different on the other two. Furthermore, analysis of 176 amplified fragment length polymorphisms revealed significant genome-wide differentiation among the five islands. Our findings are consistent with Ford’s conclusions that despite the close proximity of these islands, there is restricted gene flow among them.

The Lost Lands Of Lyonesse: Telling stories of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

The Lost Lands Of Lyonesse: Telling stories of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

The Longitude Act of 1714 and the Last Parliament of Queen Anne

Historical literature on the Longitude Act of 1714 has postulated a direct monocausal connection between a British naval disaster off the Scilly Isles in 1707 and the parliamentary enactment seven years later. This article proposes, and provides evidence for, a multicausal interpretation encompassing political, economic, and scientific factors. It argues that the Longitude Act, whose tercentenary was marked in July 2014, was the outcome of general circumstances, the legislation being concurrent with other statutory measures designed to protect shipping at a time of expanding commercial opportunities. The article re‐evaluates the parliamentary process and timetable and considers the role of MPs, men of science and journalists in promoting and seeing through parliament this important statute. It notes that the events in June 1714 mark one of the first instances of expert scientific opinion being heard at parliamentary level. It also evidences an earlier bill in 1712 promoted to protect a time movement invention designed to help in the discovery of the longitude, one of the most controversial subjects in the 18th century.