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Project properties |
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| Title | Effects of lost fishing gear on marine flora and fauna in the North Sea and Adriatic Sea |
| Group | Marine Animal Ecology |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 6-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Erik Wurz |
| Examiner(s) | Tinka Murk, Ronald Osinga, Reindert Nijland, Rosa van der Ven or Diede Maas |
| Contact info | erik.wurz@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2024/12/01 |
| End date | 2025/12/01 |
| Description | Can also be an internship or a SRP!
Abandoned, lost and otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) has been identified as a large contributor to marine plastic pollution. Once lost in the ocean, fishing gear has the potential to continue capturing marine life that is getting entangled and often perishes. Attracted by the decaying corpses scavenger species get entangled in the nets and are continuing a vicious circle. While awareness of the problem has been raised by organisations such as Healthy Seas and Ghost Diving, we lack quantitative data on how ALDFG is interacting with the marine environment. In two case studies, laser scaled video surveys have been. This project aims at analysing this video footage and identify species entangled in the net, number of entangled animals and percentage of cover with sessile organisms. The end product of this thesis should be: a quantification of the interaction of ALDFG with marine flora and fauna. |
| Used skills | ImageJ, coral point count, photogrammetry, species identification |
| Requirements | Interest in benthic species composition, proficient user of excel and R |