Final stage of large research effort linked to LifeWatch data infrastructure

On Monday June 19th Samuel Bosch will publicly defend his doctoral thesis entitled: "Marine species distributions: from data to predictive models". The defense will take place at 4 PM, Auditorium Valère Billiet, Krijgslaan 281 S8, 9000 Ghent. Promoter of this PhD is Prof. Dr. Olivier Declerck from Ghent University. Parts of this thesis were conducted in close collaboration with the VLIZ data center division and supported by LifeWatch.

A 10 year overview of IRMNG, the Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera

Earlier this week, an Open Access paper was published, featuring an overview of the 10 year history of the Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera, and explaining its way forward.

8 June: World Oceans Day!

Since 2002, June 8th has been declared World Oceans Day.

Sound impact on fish populations

The first of April was the official start of Phase II of the collaborative “PCAD4Cod”-project on the effect of sound on fish populations. Hans Slabbekoorn, associate professor at the IBL, is the principal investigator and collaborates with three PhD-students, Dr. Erwin Winter, (Wageningen Marine Research), Dr. Jan Reubens (Flanders Marine Institute) and several international experts. The Joint Industry Programme on E&P Sound and Marine Life invested € 2.000.000 into the project for the coming two years.

Nemertea Portal launched!

The Nemertea are now available through their own Portal: the World Nemertea Database.

Nemertea and Parasite experts together at VLIZ, during a double WoRMS-LifeWatch workshop

On April 24-26 2017, the Flanders Marine Institute – home of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) – welcomed 23 editors, with expertise in Nemertea (3) and Parasites (20). Both groups were at VLIZ for the first ‘double’ LifeWatch-sponsored workshop.

The EMODnet biology (phase 3) project kicks off in Ostend

The EMODnet biology (phase 3) project kicks off in Oostende from 25-26 April 2017.

 

European Tracking Network (ETN) Workshop

On 19-20 April, the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) hosted a two-day workshop to address several questions to enable such ETN network to become active and operational.

Towards a better data transfer to and from the maritime economy

The COLUMBUS project published the document ‘'Use and sharing of marine observations and data by industry' that addresses the specific needs, bottlenecks and challenges regarding the use of marine data by the industry. The publication contains a number of recommendations and some good practices in order to obtain a better data flow from and to the maritime economy, and to enhance Blue Growth.

Double EurOBIS/OBIS training in Poland

From 3 till 7 April, the EurOBIS Data Management Team provided a double training workshop in Poland. During both workshops, the participants were submerged into EurOBIS & OBIS, and other related initiatives such as EMODnet Biology and LifeWatch, and how all these initiatives relate to GBIF. Next to a general introduction, the participants were trained in how to process their own datasets to submit them to EurOBIS, from where they will flow to OBIS.