Agouti has a new look! New website and functionalities for improved user experience.
Recently, a new version of Agouti has been released. This time, major improvements have been made to the camera trap platform, based on feedback from the user community
WoRMS featured in Blue Planet II
"Covering almost three-quarters of the Earth's surface, the world’s great oceans are home to an incredibly diverse web of life. The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) currently lists just under a quarter of a million species, with new ones being identified all the time. But even as we begin to...
The Big Seashell Survey
Before the Big Seashell Survey started, there was little quantitative information on the species and numbers of shells that wash ashore at the Belgian coast. However, beached shells can say a great deal about climate change, environmental pollution, impact of human activities at sea and changes in...
Identifying African bushmeat for sale in Brussels using DNA
Bushmeat is often defined as the meat derived from wild animals, including terrestrial mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, harvested for subsistence or trade, most often illegally. It is a freely accessible source of food that can be captured rather than bred and often represents both the...
Assessing the state of the oceans
The second World Ocean Assessment – WOA II – is a global exercise by hundreds of marine scientists to evaluate trends and identify knowledge gaps in the world ocean. Two chapters of WOA II have made use of several components of the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone.
Observing plankton to understand ocean health
Increasing human activities are putting the ocean under stress, threatening the ecological health of marine ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Since plankton are sensitive to changes in environmental conditions and are short-lived, they can be used as early warning systems for the...
Augmenting the potential of vessel position data with Maritime Boundaries (MarineTraffic)
MarineTraffic displays the movement of over 550.000 vessels worldwide, based on their Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals. The website attracts millions of users on a monthly basis. Since March 31st, these vessel locations can also be plotted against the global Exclusive Economic Zones...
Tracking plastics using fish tags
Acoustic telemetry proves to be a valid method to follow up the pathway of marked ‘daily use’ plastic items in rivers, in a more detailed manner than ever before. The idea of using acoustic telemetry to track plastic items came to mind, during a fish monitoring campaign organized by the Research...
Mapping the marine migration of an IUCN endangered species
The spawning grounds of the European eel (Anguilla anguilla L.) have been a mystery for centuries and with the declining population, making it a critically endangered species on the IUCN Red List, it is important to unravel this mythical place and the migration routes leading to it. Understanding...