Early Career & Achievement Award granted to François Le Coze and Geoff Read

The 2nd WoRMS Early Career Researchers and 3rd WoRMS Achievement Award were granted respectively to François Le Coze and Geoff Read. Congratulations!

LifeWatch Data Archaeology Workshop: Analysis of historical data on bycatch in shrimp fisheries along the Belgian Coast

On the 8th of May 2018, nine experts met at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Ostend to explore what type of information is hidden in a century of historical data on bycatch in shrimp fisheries.

WoRMS press release: Celebrating a Decade of the World Register of Marine Species

In 2018, to celebrate a decade of WoRMS' existence, it was decided to compile a list of our top marine species, both for 2017 and for the previous decade.

Celebrating the 10-year anniversary of WoRMS with another publication: general insights and experiences from the DMT

Earlier today, PLoS One published a new Open Access paper in their WoRMS collection, entitled ‘A decade of the World Register of Marine Species – general insights and experiences from the Data Management Team’. The paper was written on occasion of the 10-year celebration of WoRMS, to highlight what WoRMS has been able to accomplish in the last decade and where we wish to go in the future …

WoRMS, FishBase and SeaLifeBase sign a Memorandum of Understanding

This MoU provides the basis for cooperative work between and by FishBase and SeaLifeBase and the World Register of Marine Species.

LifeWatch Data Analysis Workshop: Towards improved LifeWatch sampling campaigns

On February 22nd-23rd 2018, 22 experts met at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Ostend to explore how the LifeWatch sampling campaigns can be improved and how the generated long-term data series can be analyzed.

High-tech LifeWatch observatory unravels marine life in North Sea

LifeWatch Belgium, as a part of the European LifeWatch infrastructure, can be considered as a virtual laboratory for biodiversity research. With the support of Flanders to LifeWatch, VLIZ has a.o. developed a Marine Observatory. It aims to collect scientific data with innovative technology in an automated manner, and to make these data freely available to all potential users. On the one hand, several innovative devices to map phytoplankton (Flow Cytometer) and zooplankton (Video Plankton Recorder) are used during monthly campaigns in the Belgian part of the North Sea. On the other hand, four passive networks register and detect the presence of larger organisms (birds, porpoises, bats and fish) with a minimal human effort.

So many legs, so little time…

MilliBase: Global Diplopod species catalog launched: Check it out now and come back often!

MarineRegions.org launches update register worldwide maritime borders and names

The Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) has been investing for more than 10 years in an open source system for making maritime borders available and names underwater locations worldwide: MarineRegions.org. The download of shapefiles (polygons or polylines) and checklists of maritime and underwater locations is free for academic and educational users*. In the latest version of Marine Regions (v10), new treaties were added and the disputes known from the earlier version addressed to us were addressed.

New release: version 10 of the Maritime Boundaries

MarineRegions.org is proud to launch version 10 of the Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase.