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Phytoplankton biodiversity in the Belgian part of the North Sea: a microscopic and molecular inventory
Citation
Lagaisse, R.; Flanders Marine Institute: Belgium; (2020): Phytoplankton biodiversity in the Belgian part of the North Sea: a microscopic and molecular inventory. https://marineinfo.org/id/dataset/8013
Contact:
Lagaisse, Rune Availability:
 This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Archived raw data available. Contact data@vliz.be for more information. Description
Phytoplankton plays a pivotal role in marine ecosystems: it fuels food webs, drives carbon and nutrient cycles and responds rapidly to environmental changes like pollution or global warming. Due to its key function, monitoring of phytoplankton is essential for understanding marine dynamics and in order to preserve the marine environment for the future. In Belgian coastal waters, phytoplankton is currently monitored under the European LifeWatch infrastructure by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in collaboration with the Protistology & Aquatic Ecology (PAE) research group at the University of Gent. In this thesis, we aimed to create an updated inventory of phytoplankton biodiversity in the Belgian part of the North Sea while simultaneously assessing spatial and temporal dynamics. more
With the creation of an updated inventory accompanied by species descriptions of selected taxa that are challenging to identify, we aimed to produce a reference for future biodiversity assessments. To this end, we opted for a classical microscopic approach in combination with DNA metabarcoding of the microplankton (< 50 μm) community. In contrast with other novel, high-throughoutput assessment techniques like the FlowCam and FlowCytometry, the combination of microscopy and metabarcoding albeit more time-consuming, offers detailed insights into the taxonomic structure of the phytoplankton community. These two complimentary techniques are therefore superior to resolve uncertainties surrounding the biodiversity of phytoplankton in the Belgian part of the North Sea. Scope Themes: Biology > Plankton, Biology > Plankton > Phytoplankton Keywords: Marine/Coastal, ANE, Belgium, Belgian Continental Shelf (BCS), Bacillariophyceae, Dinophyceae Geographical coverage Temporal coverage
April 2019 - April 2020 Monthly Contributors
Related datasets
Parent dataset: LifeWatch observatory data: genomic observations in the Belgian Part of the North Sea, more Project
LifeWatch: Flemish contribution to LifeWatch.eu, more
Publication
Based on this dataset
Lagaisse, R. (2020). Phytoplankton biodiversity in the Belgian part of the North Sea: a microscopic and molecular inventory. MSc Thesis. Ghent University, Biology Department: Gent. 117 pp., more
Dataset status: Completed
Data type: Data
Data origin: Research: field survey
Metadatarecord created: 2022-01-10
Information last updated: 2023-07-27
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