Objective
The objectives of this programme are five fold:
1. To investigate and describe the biodiversity of maerl systems in the NE Atlantic and mediterranean Sea.
2. To investigate the structural factors causing differences in biodiversity between sites. This will involve detailed assessment of site edaphic factors, in particular the structural complexity of the habitat.
3. To investigate the interactions of the key habitat-structuring organisms.
4. To investigate the dynamics of community composition over time, especially the impact of natural disturbances.
5. To identify anthropogenic threats to, and assess the resilience of, maerl grounds.
The collaboration envisaged will provide a comprehensive biogeographical coverage of sites from Scotland to Galicia in the Atlantic to Alicante and Malta in the Mediterranean, covering a substantial range of conditions under which maerl systems occur in European seas. At the completion of the programme a detailed inventory of regional biodiversity on maerl beds will be constructible. No such inventory exists at present.
It is the intention to describe the range of habitat conditions at each study site. Standard protocols would be applied to definition of site edaphic feature temperature, salinity, water transparency, current velocity, maerl granulometry and silt content and porosity, megarippling, assessment of percentage live maerl, sediment pH, organic content and redox potential. Different workers have, in the past, studied the biology of maerl system using different sampling methodologies, e.g. remote sampling using grabs and corers and direct SCUBA/TV methods. Direct methods of observation offer the best chance of investigating small-scale patchiness of undisturbed systems. Key species and structural features of the maerl community will be identified for detailed study at each locality. A diversity of chosen special topics between areas will achieve a much greater in-depth understanding of the variety of
physical/chemical/biological mechanisms affecting regional biodiversity. There will be considerable differences in species composition between the maerl communities in places as far apart as Millport and Malta. Flexibility will be retained between partners to exploit the circumstances of their own grounds to the full, while maintaining comparability in other studies.
Thus, comparative background investigations (of population density, biomass, diversity) will be deliberately harmonized between teams to provide a university comparative framework of data. It is vital that work proceeds at all seasons of the year, to take into account cycles of reproduction, colonization and migration, and allow analyses of the impact of natural stress factors, e.g. storms.
In each team's area, a perturbed and a control site will be selected for study of local impacts. The assessment of all these data will lead to the widest possible appreciation of the impacts of Man's activities [direct exploitation(Brittany, Glenan archipelago), scalloP dredging (Scotland), otter trawling (Alicante, Malta), aquaculture (Galicia, Malta), eutrophication effects (Brittany, Bay of Brest)] OII this most vulnerable ecosystem.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries fisheries
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
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Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
KA28 0EG MILLPORT,ISLE CUMBRAE
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.