On Tuesday August 8th, an introduction to Aphia and the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) was given by members of the LifeWatch VLIZ team.

The main theme for the XIIth SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) biology symposium is "Scale matters". From the small molecular scale, through population and large ecosystem scale, biological processes and diversity span all these levels. Understanding these processes as well past and present patterns of biodiversity are essential for understanding possible threats to Antarctic biology and their impact.

On 6 July 2017, the LifeWatch INBO team gave a workshop on reproducible science at the Young Water Professionals BeNeLux Regional Conference at Ghent University.

The EMODnet Ad Hoc Technical Working Group supports the technical implementation of the EMODnet Central Portal. This is a closed meeting, restricted to EMODnet project partners and relevant stakeholders (such as LifeWatch).

During 19 – 23 June 2017, the research involving the LifeWatch Fish Tracking Network was presented at the 4th International Conference on Fish Telemetry in Cairns, Australia.

Oral presentations:

European silver eel (Anguilla anguilla L.) migration behaviour in a highly regulated canal (Verhelst, P.; Baeyens, R., Reubens, J., Buysse, D., Pauwels, I., Vergeynst J., Ovidio, M., Benitez, J.-P., Goethals, P., Coeck, J., Moens, T., Mouton, A.)

During 13 – 15 June 2017, the eel tracking within the LifeWatch Fish Acoustic Network was presented at the First International Eel Science Symposium in London.

This workshop given by LifeWatch INBO team member Stijn Van Hoey gives an introduction to scripting in Pyhton and R for GIS analysis.

Course material at: https://stijnvanhoey.github.io/course_gis_scripting/#1

This training course was aimed at researchers at the post-graduate level and provided a comprehensive introduction to a variety of marine datasets and formats and the use of software for synthesis and analysis of marine data. The importance of good research data management practices and the role of researchers was also highlighted. Personal projects were presented by the students at the end of the course.

Three training sessions were given by LifeWatch Belgium trainers: