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Principali risultati del network europeo di eccellenza MARBEF

The amount of marine debris in the environment is increasing worldwide, which results in an array of negative effects to biota. This study provides the first account of macrodebris on the beach and microplastics in the sediment (shoreline and infralittoral) in relation to tourism activities in Slovenia. The study assessed the quality and quantity of macrodebris and the quality, size and quantity of microplastics at six beaches, contrasting those under the influences of tourism and those that were not. Beach cleanliness was estimated using the Clean Coast Index. Tourism did not seem to have an effect on macrodebris or microplastic quantity at beaches. Over 64% of macrodebris was plastic, and microplastics were ubiquitous, which calls for classification of plastics as hazardous materials. Standard measures for marine debris assessment are needed, especially in the form of an all-encompassing debris index. Recommendations for future assessments are provided for the Adriatic region.

The meiobenthologists’ international meetings began officially in Tunisia, in 1969, when 28 researchers gathered to discuss the taxonomy and ecology of meiobenthos. A second meeting followed four years later in York (UK), in 1973, and a third one occurred in Hamburg (Germany) in 1977. From then onwards, the tri-annual International Meiofauna Conference was born. Every three years, more participants join the group, and there seems to be an ever increasing wealth of knowledge being shared at these events. So far, 13 IMCo's have taken place. Ghent University, its Marine Biology Research Group and the International Association of Meiobenthologists, are proud to have welcomed all meiofauna students, scientists and enthusiasts to FourtIMCo, the 14th International Meiofauna Conference, in Ghent, 11-16 July 2010. FourtIMCo provides a multidisciplinary forum to researchers from disciplines such as community and population ecology, taxonomy, phylogeny and phylogeography, environmental studies, biogeochemistry and microbiology, that study habitats from freshwater over estuarine to marine environments. The meiofauna is the overarching theme connecting these very different lines of research and habitats with studies also involving meiofauna as one component of larger and more encompassing research themes, such as benthic carbon flows, foodweb models, biodiversity studies, environmental impact and management among others. During the FourtIMCo conference, 73 abstracts were given in oral presentations, and 128 abstracts as poster presentations, by 180 scientists from 28 countries.The FourtIMCo programme hosts sessions on the following themes:- Biodiversity and biogeography of meiofauna (27 oral and 50 poster)- Taxonomy and phylogeny of meiofauna (11 oral and 36 poster)- Meiofauna research as a basis for environmental management (11 oral and 11 poster)- Freshwater meiofauna (7 oral and 6 poster)- Ecological interactions and energy flow (14 oral and 8 poster)- Meiofauna in pollution studies (6 oral and 12 poster)

Flanders Marine Institute and its consortium of experts on non-indigenous species conduct an ongoing effort to collect and maintain a list of alien species with documented established populations in the Belgian part of the North Sea and its adjacent estuaries. The list strives to include all currently known non-indigenous and cryptogenic species registered in salt and brackish environments in the Belgian part of the North Sea, the Belgian coastal zone and adjacent estuaries (Yser, Scheldt, Ostend Sluicedock). The discovery of America (1492) marked by a strong increase in trans-Atlantic shipping is set as the historical baseline of this assessment. This effort scrutinizes intentional and unintentional introductions by man or other vectors. Alien species for which there is no evidence of resident populations are not included in the list, nor are species that are limited to the fresh water environment. Newly registered species as a consequence of (expected) naturally induced migrations are also excluded. This initiative aims at providing a freely available online source of information on non-indigenous species and its associated network of experts for this study area. This includes definitions, information sheets and background literature, by species, and further links to European and international initiatives. Each information sheet describes the life cycle and ecology of the species, the introduction pathways and distribution, the possible effects or impacts of the species on its environment and potential mitigation measures. Pictures and a fully documented reference list - all available at the VLIZ library - represent an important added-value.http://www.vliz.be/NL/Cijfers_Beleid/Niet_inheemse (Dutch)

Identification of specimens is a task that every biologist is confronted with. The process of identification in many cases delivers many problems due to unavailability of keys, difficult specialised keys or old keys.Within NeMys (http://intramar.ugent.be/nemys) recently a new identification module has been added. Based upon morphological data derived from published literature, polytomous digital identification keys are made. This kind of keys has the advantage that users are not forced to follow a predefined pathway (as in dichotomous keys), users can choose their best suitable characteristics to work with and the keys can be easily updated with new insights through a fully online key-generation system.By using internet technologies, the identification keys are at any time anywhere available for use. As the data used in the keys is derived from the database system NeMys, it is also possible to check the identification process at any level, with literature sources, images, distribution patterns, … on the website of NeMys.This kind of technology opens new possibilities for biologists to share their taxonomic knowledge with a broader audience without being forced to go through the difficult process of creating dichotomous paper-based keys.

The taxonomical online database system NeMys was originally developed to store literature based morphological and geographical information on Nematodes and Mysida. As the system was constructed as generic as possible it could also handle other taxa like e.g. phytoplankton, turbellaria, … and even non-marine taxa. New taxa also asked new requirements to the system. Therefore recently a new module on collection items was added. This enables users to add a collection item and add morphological, morphometrical and geographical data for specimens studied. The Mysida dataset, the largest and most complete dataset running on Nemys uses all features of NeMys. Morphologically all genera have been defined and progressively also data on the species is added. Geographically information on more than 2000 stations where Mysida were found and about 5000 literature references, more then half of it in an electronical version, are available. Pictures giving a good morphological view of almost all species are progressively added. A start has been made with adding data on the most important worldwide mysida museum collections. All this together makes the Mysida dataset a good testing example for fine-tuning the online data-consultation and data-entry interfaces. The online availability and use of common used technologies and database structures makes the NeMys system more then just a simple taxonomical dataset. NeMys can now (thanks to recent additions) be seen as fully functional biological information system which is implementable for any taxon.

Recognition of the main morphological characteristics within mysid species needs a lot of practice. Often ecologists lack this taxonomic knowledge but need to identify their specimens. Well-illustrated documentation showing clearly characteristics to look at may help to solve this problem.The growing possibilities of digital photography make it possible to make lots of pictures without spending big amounts of time and money. These pictures, together with a well-structured description in a user-friendly environment, give new identification and analysis possibilities.Data is taken from different sources: specimens available in a growing reference collection, pictoral data from literature sources, photographs sent by colleagues, data retrieved on the internet. In a first stage pictures taken through the binocular are taken. Secondly also pictures from microscopic preparations are added.The database may finally serve as a digital reference collection for different purposes. It may even be used as a starting point for new description in combination with classic drawings and taxonomic databases such as Taxonlan.This case study may also be a starting point for a similar approach in other taxa.

Recent biodiversity research reveals that more than 50% of the free-living marine nematode species found in before unexplored environments, such as Antarctica, are new to science. Too few taxonomists remain to describe them all. Additionally, there are problems with the quality control of the identification of nematode samples since fewer labs possess all the literature (and manpower) required to verify the morphological characteristics of the animals.NEMASLAN, software for a tree-based classification system (Access) is a methodological approach for improving identification, classification and description of specimens in difficult taxonomic groups such as free-living marine nematodes. It seeks to serve as an easy research tool for central management of information of the taxon of the nematodes, and this for people with little training in database technologies.The program consists of four main modules: (see demonstration)1. Module for data- entering: provides possibilities to enter geographic, morphological, ecological, and literature data on species in a record database. An additional connection between these database records and the actual digital sources (e.g. scanned literature from original descriptions and good recent publications) enlarges the scientific value of the system.Personal metadatasets can be created, for example for the use of drawings and/or pictures of undescribed species or not yet published taxonomic papers. 2. Module for document consultation: data sources (PDF documents of original descriptions, text documents, photographs,…) and their references can be consulted. 3. Module for Quick Search: Morphological data from the species identification (e.g. shape and/or position of amphid, cuticle, buccal cavity, tail, oesophagus, caudal glands and spinneret; feeding type; numerical fields of de Man ratios, length, setae, nerve ring, excretory porus, spicule, gubernaculum, male supplements) and other information such as type of biotope and water depth distribution can be consulted; datasheets can be generated.4. Search Module: The output and search within the database can be user configured (i.e. questions like ‘give me all the nematode species so far described from the coastal sites with a spicule longer than 30µm and cuticular punctuations’ get an answer from this database). SQL (Structured Query Language) is the formal language used to query databases. An in-depth knowledge of the fairly complex SQL language is not required.The Windows application functions for multi-users in a local network environment (LAN). The program is distributed free of charge through a website (at present http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~tdeprez: later on through a more specified Antarctic database website) at which demonstration datasets are distributed.NEMASLAN was applied to Antarctic nematodes. The resulting ‘Biodiversity of Antarctic Nematodes’ CD-ROM version includes an archive of all numerical and nominal information for each species ever described in the Southern Ocean. About 350 species have thus been digitized. There is an urgent need to develop appropriate information tools on Antarctic marine biodiversity for scientific, environmental management and conservation purposes. Therefore, the collaboration of three laboratory pioneers in Antarctic biodiversity databases (e.g. Antarctic nematodes, amphipods and echinids, see other presentations) will seek for further developments such as the construction of a common portal, common mapping applications, or links to pertinent information sources of Antarctic benthic biodiversity. The resulting ‘biodiversity information system’ will be made available to the scientific community. This will be done within the framework of the OSTC project on Antarctica - BIANZO (BIodiversity of three representative groups of the ANtarctic ZOobenthos). It will contribute to the DIVERSITAS, SA 2000, CoML-OBIS and GBIF initiatives.

During many years of extensive research at the Marine Biology Section (Ghent University) an almost complete collection of reprints on free-living marine Nematodes was built up. This collection still grows and more people are getting involved with it. Keeping the collection preserved for the future becomes a main worry. Therefore about four years ago we started making the collection also digitally available.A software developer was contacted and given the task to write an application corresponding to the needs formulated by the future users:· Input of taxonomic data must be possible in an easy way (through a taxonomical tree structure)· Availability of morphological, ecological and distribution data at the species level· Connection to the data source (digitally available) must be kept at any time· Data access and input in a network environment had to be possibleSoftware was developed and data input was started. Confronted with data-input new questions and worries evolved, which had to be translated into software changes. NemasLan was born.Two years later, interest was growing on starting a similar dataset on Mysidacea. Software had to be rewritten and new concepts were added corresponding to the needs for this taxon. MysidLan was born. After working with both systems for about three years (each with their own software code), it was decided to create a generic system based on the former two systems but easily adaptable for datasets of other groups.TaxonLan was born, but was aching of lot of child diseases.As time went by, a big evolution within the world of taxonomic databases took place. All over the world similar projects arose and also in Belgium structural steps were taken through/by means of the establishment of a data center (VLIZ - Flanders Marine Institute).Communication between different authorities, developing and working with taxonomical databases, as well as the growing expertise within our laboratory and the enormous costs associated with software development, made us decide to stop collaborating with a commercial software developer. The created datasets will be fine-tuned into a general database structure (as being used by the VLIZ or IT IS). By heading in this direction we hope our data becomes more than an exclusive dataset for our laboratory/department and new possibilities will arise.

Idiomysis mozambicus is described from coastal waters of Mozambique. The species can be distinguished from the other species of the genus by the one-segmented antennal scale, the two-segmented exopod of the fourth male pleopod and the bluntly pointed rostrum.