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European plaice movements show evidence of high residency, site fidelity, and feeding around hard substrates within an offshore wind farm Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek
Offshore wind farms (OWFs) are expanding rapidly in the North Sea, often creating spatial conflicts with fisheries. Managing such conflicts requires knowledge on the impact of OWFs on the spatial distribution and movement behaviour of fished species. However, such knowledge is still lacking, especially for soft sediment fish such as flatfish, which are vital fisheries resources in the region. Therefore, we used acoustic telemetry to examine the ...
DNA metabarcoding on repeat: Sequencing data of marine macrobenthos are reproducible and robust across labs and protocols Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek
DNA metabarcoding can be used in marine environmental monitoring if results are reproducible between labs and robust against modifications to the lab protocol. In this interlaboratory study, we conducted a ring test where subsamples of blended macrobenthos samples were distributed to four laboratories located in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. Samples were processed by a standardized lab protocol and by an adapted protocol, and ...
Detection and quantification of two commercial flatfishes (Solea solea and Pleuronectes platessa) in the North Sea using environmental DNA Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek
Sustainable fisheries management requires regular scientific monitoring of fish stocks. When information on certain fish stocks is limited, environmental DNA (eDNA) holds promise to complement traditional monitoring surveys. However, a better understanding of how eDNA concentrations relate to fish abundance and biomass is needed. Here, eDNA quantification of two commercially important flatfish species in the North-East Atlantic, common sole ...
Functional trait responses to different anthropogenic pressures Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek
There is an increasing awareness that knowledge of the functional diversity of a community is key to understand how the community responds to environmental and anthropogenic pressures. The Belgian Part of the North Sea (BPNS) represents a highly dynamic area that is subject to a variety of human activities. The main objective of this study is to investigate the usefulness of functional diversity indices and fuzzy correspondence analysis (FCA) to ...
Belgian Sea Fisheries - Background information on the sustainability pathway in the last decade Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek
SEAwise Report on the spatiotemporal benthic effects of fishing on benthic habitats relative to suggested threshold levels, both with respect to area impacted and impact intensity Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek
The SEAwise project works to deliver a fully operational tool that will allow fishers, managers, and policy makers to easily apply Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) in their own fisheries. This report gives an overview of the progress made to develop spatio–(temporal) assessments of fishing impact on benthic habitats in EU-waters and evaluating changes in benthic ecosystem functioning due to fishing. The assessments builds on the ICES ...
Optimized Screening Methods for Investigation of the Larval Settlement of Lanice conchilega on Artificial Substrates Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek
The Belgium sandy coastline is very vulnerable to erosion; therefore, development of sustainable and nature-based coastal protection solutions is important. Enhancing the settlement of the ecosystem engineer Lanice conchilega (Pallas, 1766) which stabilises the sediment bed, is a possible solution. In order to enhance larval settlement by artificial substrates in the field, efficient methodologies are required to screen a wide range of ...
Offshore wind farms affect the spatial distribution pattern of plaice Pleuronectes platessa at both the turbine and wind farm scale Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek
We investigated how the distribution of plaice Pleuronectes platessa, a typical soft-sediment fish species, has been affected by the introduction of hard substrate [turbines and scour protection layer (SPL)] at both turbine and wind farm scale in two Belgian offshore wind farms (OWFs). Diving transects (40 m) at 11 monopiles revealed four times higher plaice abundances on the sandy patches of the SPL (average radius 16.5 m) compared to the ...
Trawling effects on biogeochemical processes are mediated by fauna in high-energy biogenic-reef-inhabited coastal sediments Instituut voor Landbouw-, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek
Dynamic, sandy environments are generally less vulnerable to mechanical stress compared to silty, low-energy habitats. Biogenic reef communities, however, may provide an exception to this. This study explores the physical, biological, and biogeochemical effects of bottom trawl fishing on a coastal ecosystem dominated by the tube-building polychaete Lanice conchilega. Two specific gear types, both used to exploit North Sea sole (Solea solea), ...