Homepage: http://eu-fp7-coralfish.net
Funding organisation: This project is funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) Theme 6: Environment; Activity 6.2: Sustainable Management of Resources Grant agreement no.: 213144
Type: Integrated project (IP)
Runtime: 2008-2012
Coordination: Antony Grehan, National University of Ireland, Galway
Data curator: Stephane Pesant, marum, University Bremen
CoralFISH data sets, archived in the data library PANGAEA®
CoralFISH will assess the interaction between corals, fish and fisheries, in order to develop monitoring and predictive modelling tools for ecosystem based management in the deep waters of Europe and beyond. The objective of CoralFISH are to: (1) develop essential methodologies and indicators for baseline and subsequent monitoring of closed areas; (2) integrate fish into coral ecosystem models to better understand coral fish-carrying capacity; (3) evaluate the distribution of deepwater bottom fishing effort to identify areas of potential interaction and impact upon coral habitat; (4) use genetic fingerprinting to assess the potential erosion of genetic fitness of corals due to long-term exposure to fishing impacts; (5) construct bio-economic models to assess management effects on corals and fisheries to provide policy options; and (6) produce habitat suitability maps both regionally and for OSPAR Region V to identify areas likely to contain vulnerable habitat. The latter will provide the EU with the tools to address the issues raised by the UNGA resolution.
The World Data Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences (WDC-MARE/PANGAEA) is responsible for setting up the CoralFISH archive, ensuring that data collected during CoralFISH will be safeguarded and accessible beyond the duration of the project. The term "Data" comprises scientific information with its corresponding meta-data.
The acquisition of new data is an important goal of CoralFISH. These include numerical data (i.e. analytical values), figures, pictures,drawings, and maps. They will be generated by : (1) improved mapping surveys of coral habitat in each of six regional study areas; (2) coordinated surveys in each of these regions to investigate the interaction of fish with coral habitat using the the same methodologies, i.e. acoustic fisheries survey, commercial long-lining and finally detailed in situ observation with Remotely Operated Vehicles or submersibles or towed video apparatus; and (3) detailed temporal observations of both fish and coral and their response to changing environmental forcing using 'state of the art' instrumented lander systems provided by NIOZ and UNIABDN.
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