Project description
Watching the seafloor on a budget
Commercial fishing has altered the physical and biological characteristics of the Mediterranean’s seafloor. While monitoring is vital to understand long-term changes, underwater data collection in deep habitats is expensive. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the MONICA project aims to validate the use of cost-effective alternatives to state-of-the-art imaging methods, such as drifting cameras and baited systems. Specifically, the project will compare the biodiversity of Cap de Creus’ initial Natura 2000 designation against newly collected data, building a scalable framework for the monitoring of deep marine habitats. This approach offers a path for regional conservation authorities to maintain high-quality ecological monitoring while reducing the economic costs, ensuring that marine protected areas can deliver on their conservation mandates.
Objective
The offshore marine area of Cap de Creus (NW Mediterranean), characterised by its complex geological setting and rich epibenthic ecosystem, was declared a Site of Community Importance (SCI) of the Natura 2000 Network in 2014. Although environmental factors play a fundamental role in the distribution of benthic fauna, commercial fishing was found to exert a significant effect on the diversity and structure of benthic communities, especially on the soft-bottom areas of the shelf. The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) determines that thematic strategies should be implemented to preserve its marine resources following an ecosystem-based approach, setting environmental targets and implementing a monitoring program to evaluate if conservation objectives are met. There is currently an array of imaging technologies at our disposal that could be used to monitor the benthic ecosystems of this SCI, but most would require highly elevated budgets to be operated on a regular basis. In this scenario, the project MONICA aims to explore the potential of recently developed low-cost imaging technologies (i.e. the Azor drift-cam) to explore and monitor the shelf and slope habitats of Cap de Creus to provide a cost-effective response to the demands of the MSFD. With this technology, MONICA will identify changes in the composition and structure of benthic communities since the creation of the SCI and generate a new baseline for the implementation of a correct monitoring program. Furthermore, it will
employ low-cost Baited Remote Underwater Videos (BRUVs) to characterise the demersal fish assemblages and determine the functional role of benthic communities. If successful, these technologies could open the doors to generate essential data at a significantly lower cost in other areas of the Mediterranean to assist in decision-making processes and policy development for the conservation and restoration of marine biodiversity in times of rapid changes.
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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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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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.
Funding Scheme
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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.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
28006 Madrid
Spain
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