Searching synergies between IMEV and LifeWatch VLIZ
Plankton imagery experts from l’Institut de la Mer de Villefranche (IMEV) visited over 3 days the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) to discuss the way forward in plankton imagery. It turned out as an inspiring cross-fertilisation!
Plankton imagery instruments, deployed in situ or in the lab, can reveal abundance, biomass and size spectra of plankton and marine particles, improving our ability to study plankton community composition and their small-scale spatial distribution.
Thanks to technological advancement in imagery, many marine research centers are acquiring more instruments, more data and are becoming highly specialized in this field. In this situation, collaboration among research stations that are using the same methods, instruments and similar workflows are key to meet a common goal: to produce interoperable and high quality imagery datasets from which biologically and ecologically meaningful plankton observations can be derived.
From 18 to 20 July 2022 a team of plankton imagery specialists from the Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV), the Quantitative Imagery Platform (PIQv) and the Center for Planktonic Collections (CCPv) from the Institut de la mer de Villefranche, Sorbonne Université-CNRS, in France, visited the LifeWatch VLIZ team in Ostend. During the 3 days meeting, both teams shared their expertise, discussed data acquisition, processing and management, identified synergies among their respective projects and future collaborations, among others. It was a very fruitful meeting with action points to follow up in the coming months, until the next time when, hopefully, the team from Ostend will visit Villefranche sur mer.
Imaging data and sensors acquired at VLIZ are part of the Flemish contribution to LifeWatch.
Thanks to technological advancement in imagery, many marine research centers are acquiring more instruments, more data and are becoming highly specialized in this field. In this situation, collaboration among research stations that are using the same methods, instruments and similar workflows are key to meet a common goal: to produce interoperable and high quality imagery datasets from which biologically and ecologically meaningful plankton observations can be derived.
From 18 to 20 July 2022 a team of plankton imagery specialists from the Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV), the Quantitative Imagery Platform (PIQv) and the Center for Planktonic Collections (CCPv) from the Institut de la mer de Villefranche, Sorbonne Université-CNRS, in France, visited the LifeWatch VLIZ team in Ostend. During the 3 days meeting, both teams shared their expertise, discussed data acquisition, processing and management, identified synergies among their respective projects and future collaborations, among others. It was a very fruitful meeting with action points to follow up in the coming months, until the next time when, hopefully, the team from Ostend will visit Villefranche sur mer.
Imaging data and sensors acquired at VLIZ are part of the Flemish contribution to LifeWatch.
