News
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Earlier this year, a white-beaked dolphin stranded at the Belgian coast, in Blankenberge. This is an indigenous species in the North Sea which prefers however to swim at a certain distance from the coast, so it is rarely seen.
The skeleton of this male specimen of 2.24 m long can now be viewed at the Museum of Morphology. It makes the collection of indigenous cetacean species at the Museum complete as there already are preserved skeletons of a harbour porpoise, minke whale, and common bottlenose dolphin.
You can see more pictures of the dissection at the Facebook... Learn more
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Recently, Ann-Katrien Lescrauwaet from Flanders Marine Institute defended her PhD on 'Belgian fisheries: ten decades, seven seas, forty species'.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Microplastics are small plastic particles (<1 mm) originating from the degradation of larger plastic debris. These microplastics have been accumulating in the marine environment for decades and have been detected throughout the water column and in sublittoral and beach sediments worldwide.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
All across the North Sea wind farms are planned, under construction and operational. Thousands of wind turbines will be present and as a result new hard substrate habitats, through the wind turbine foundations, arise.
Monday, September 2, 2013
The Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), the Terrestrial Ecology Unit and Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) installed a GPS tracking network to monitor the habitat use and migration patterns of the herring gull, the lesser black-backed gull and the western marsh harrier in Flanders.
Monday, August 26, 2013
During the Marine Art exhibition, a children's university took place dedicated to the oceans. A lecture on a stranded sperm whale was followed by 4 workshops, attended by 100 kids.
Researchers from the Marine Biology research group will take part in another education and outreach event in September, 'science on the street'. Based on the Children's University on Tour, scientists will bring a fair booth with experiments.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Scientists from Flanders Marine Institute,the Marine Biology Research Group (UGent) and the Institute for Agriculture and Fisheries Research recently published a new paper entitled ‘Invisible catch: a century of bycatch and unreported removals in sea fisheries, Belgium 1929-2010’.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
As reported previously, a minke whale stranded on the beach of Nieuwpoort earlier this year.
Only a couple of months later, the skeleton can be admired at the Museum of Morphology.
Friday, July 19, 2013
The EMBC Master programme organizes annually since 2008 a summer school for all students enrolled in the first year of the two year-long programme. This year the 62 students are visiting the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research located in Heraklion (Crete).
Friday, July 19, 2013
The ‘Compendium for Coast and Sea’, an integrated document about the socio-economic, ecological and institutional aspects of the coast and the sea in Flanders and Belgium, is being prepared.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
From 28 May until 22 June, a UGent team of 3 scientists from the Renard Centre of Marine Geology travelled to Lisbon to participate in 2 subsequent campaigns on board of respectively R/V Belgica (Lisbon – Cadiz) and R/V Marion Dufresne (Cadiz – Lisbon).
Monday, July 1, 2013
Marine Board Navigating the Future IV is now available online.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Recently, a paper on the assessment of marine debris on the Belgian Continental Shelf was published by researchers from the Laboratory of Environmental Toxicology and Flanders Marine Institute. This led to a Dutch article on the Eos website, a magazine on science and technology, accessible for a wide audience.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
The doctoral research of Michiel Claessens (Laboratory of Environmental Toxicology and Aquatic Ecology) focused on the use of passive samplers as a central tool in integrated environmental assessments in marine environments.
Monday, June 24, 2013
From 24 to 27 June, all 105 students currently enrolled in the Joint Master degree in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (EMBC), will be in Ghent for the annual thesis event. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the 43 graduating students present their thesis for the general public.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The overall aim of this PhD study was to expand and update our knowledge of the mesozooplankton (0.2-2 mm) in the southern North Sea, and to characterize the trophic role of zooplankton as prey for pelagic fish.
Friday, June 14, 2013
In the framework of the European ECO2 project Dr. Katja Guilini of the Marine Biology Research Group participated in an expedition to Panarea, one of the Aeolian Islands in the Mediterranen Sea (June 2-14th, 2013), together with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Microbiology (Bremen, Germany) and from GEOMAR (Kiel, Germany).
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
On May 28th Tomas Praet defended his PhD entitled 'Biomechanical structure of the seahorse tail as an inspiration for industrial design'.
Millions of years of evolutionary pressure have forced organisms to find suitable solutions for a whole range of real-world problems. Through evolution, small changes in functionality are tested on their fitness, efficiency, and robustness. Engineers are on a daily basis faced by the same problems. Consequently, engineers can find design inspiration in the solutions provided by nature, even for cuttingedge engineering applications.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Part of the Marine Art exhibition was displayed at Fort Napoleon, Ostend. The exhibition took place from May 18 to June 9.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Trawl fishing on shrimp and sole results in seabed disturbance and produces high discards of which the majority of animals do not survive. Recently, the European Commission decided to strongly reduce these discards, warranting the need for research on alternative fishing techniques with less environmental impact in terms of seabed disturbance and discards.
