LifeWatch

Baltic tellin most common bivalve at the fourth Belgian Big Seashell Survey

Oostende (2021.03.17) - The Big Seashell Survey 2021 - a unique citizen science initiative on Belgian beaches that took place last Sunday 14 March - was a top edition! The Baltic tellin accounted for almost 30% of all shells found, followed by the cut trough shell (23%) and the common cockle (19%). Two-thirds of all Baltic tellins was found as whole shells, composed of two hinged parts of valves, indicating a recent death, possibly due to the stormy conditions during the past weeks.

LifeWatch

WoRMS Philanthropy grants 2020

During 2020, the VLIZ Philanthropy program was able to issue four grants to support WoRMS editors, in making WoRMS more complete. Together, these four grants resulted in about 10.000 edits and additions to WoRMS.

LifeWatch

Naming animals in images – a new guide to the process

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name” (Confucius) … but sometimes, giving a name to something is easier said than done...

LifeWatch

LifeWatch Flanders ready for the next level!

The Flemish LifeWatch Consortium receives additional funding for the next years.

LifeWatch

Life in the North Sea is becoming more exotic

79 alien marine & brackish water animals and algae from the Belgian part of the North Sea and the Scheldt Estuary not only documented in a book, but also accessible through the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone.

LifeWatch

LifeWatch to the (data) rescue: More than 90 historical datasets available!

Collected once, ready to be used many times!

LifeWatch

Call for nominations for the WoRMS Top-Ten Marine Species of 2020

Although it has been a difficult year for everyone, we know that taxonomists have continued to publish many wonderful new species throughout. So as we approach the end of the year it is time to think about nominations for The WoRMS Top Ten Marine Species of 2020!

LifeWatch

The migratory fish need our help!

Who still remembers that wild Atlantic salmon was once a local product, caught in the Scheldt, IJzer or Maas rivers?

LifeWatch

Use your gaming skills to save the eel!

Pieterjan Verhelst, a biotelemetry scientist and frequent user of the Belgian LifeWatch infrastructure developed a game “Save the eel”, to inform the general public about the obstacles eels face during their seaward migration.

LifeWatch

Coming soon: LifeWatch data cloud application with Belgian marine data for blue economy

The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), the Blue Cluster (DBC) and the Flemish Supercomputing Center (VSC) inquired after the needs for data applications of the Flemish maritime companies, and how supercomputing can be a solution for this. Very recently, LifeWatch Belgium designed a pilot data cloud on the high-performance infrastructure of the VSC for making Belgian marine (biodiversity) data available to maritime companies, in a quick and efficient manner.