LifeWatch Belgium’s Big Seashell Survey Takes Off in France

Big Seashell Survey 2023

The Big Annual Seashell Survey, with shells collected across more than 400 kilometres of beaches, has become one of the largest citizen science initiatives on Europe’s coasts. This annual LifeWatch Belgium initiative began in 2018, driven by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in close cooperation with EOS Science, the Province of West Flanders, Natuurpunt, the Strandwerkgroep, Kusterfgoed and the ten coastal municipalities. In 2022, at the fifth edition, the Netherlands participated for the first time. And during last Saturday’s edition on 25 March, the Netherlands accounted for their entire coastline, and staff from CPIE Flandre Maritime in Zuydcoote (northern France) also took part.

In total, the estimated 2,000 participants picked up 82,444 shells (B: 40,770 ex.; NL: 34,689 ex.; F: 6,985 ex) from the beach during the Big Seashell Survey 2023. In the three countries combined, volunteers encountered 66 different species (B: 51; NL: 55; F: 35). The two most prevalent shells remain the Cut trough shell and Common cockle, making the top five in each of the three countries. There are also clear regional differences; Belgium again saw its ‘traditional’ trio score highest, with Cut trough shell (23%), Baltic tellin (23%) and Common cockle (21%). In the Netherlands too, the Cut trough shell was the most numerous shell (32%), followed by Common cockle (18%) and Elliptical trough shell (17%). The Baltic tellin made it into the top five only in Zeeland. The Zuydcoote counting station in France saw a top-three formed by Common cockle (24%), Pullet carpet shell (21%) and Blue mussel (17%). There, Cut trough shell only came in at position five. And Atlantic razor shell finished fourth in each of the countries.
Project initiator Jan Seys analyses the figures: “Over the entire length of the counted stretch, Cut trough shell and Common cockle are omnipresent. Most of these shells are old, as you can derive from the low number of double shells (<4%), and you find them everywhere. On top of that, you can clearly see local differences, with typically many Baltic tellin on the Belgian east and middle coasts and on the Zeeland coast, and for instance a striking number of recent Pullet carpet shell and Grooved razor shell towards the French border. The Netherlands, in turn, has more fossil Elliptical trough shell. To see those patterns, you need a Big Annual Seashell Survey.” 

There were also striking differences among individual species. For instance, the Netherlands counted only 1,188 Blue mussels in total, while France collected 1,200 specimens at barely one station (and Belgium: 3,398 ex. At all ten stations). Soft-shelled clam, on the other hand, was only found in the Netherlands (total: 436 ex.).

In the three countries combined, the participants found 6 exotic species, accounting for 9% of the shell species. Expressed in number of specimens, the occurrence of exotics appears to increase proportionally towards the Channel. The abundance there of the Atlantic razor clam, supplemented by Dwarf surf clam and Japanese carpet shell makes the difference (F: 14.8%; B: 13.2%; NL: 7.7%). Other important exotic species are the American piddock, Pacific oyster and Slipper mullet.

Finally, this year, attention was also focused on the occurrence of round holes in shells, which testify to silent deaths perpetrated by predatory snails, such as necklace shells and Dogwhelk. These bore through the calcareous shells with their grating tongue, only to suck up the soft flesh inside with their proboscis. In any case, the snails themselves were relatively rare (Dogwhelk: 14 ex.; Spotted necklace shell: 106 ex.; Common necklace shell: 147 ex.). Interestingly, based on almost three hundred checked samples from the Belgian coast, less than 1% of all shells showed bore holes. Half of these occurred on the Cut trough shell; other important prey were Banded wedge-shell, Elliptical trough shell, Thick trough shell and Baltic tellin. Incidentally, many of the affected specimens were (sub)fossil ones.


The Big Seashell Survey 2023 was for everyone. In Ostend, two reception classes for foreign-speaking newcomers (OKAN) actively participated in the shell count, with 14–18-year-old participants from Pakistan, Romania, Ukraine, Somalia and Saudi Arabia, among others. And in Ghent, Ekoli vzw, working diligently for inclusive science, went to work with students of VBS Sancta Maria Gentbrugge.

This article was orignally posted on the website of LifeWatch Belgium.

The LifeWatch Community Platform is here!

LifeWatch Community

Roll up, roll up! LifeWatch followers and collaborators are cordially invited to the grand unveiling of the LifeWatch Community platform, now openly available to everyone! Who should become a member? Well, if you’re interested in biodiversity and ecosystem research, then you should!

The content of the Community platform will be widely shaped by its members, allowing them to create and contribute to forums, add opportunities, jobs and events of interest to the community, and hold meetings and collaborative brainstorming together with other members. These features are particularly well-suited to the needs of partners involved in European projects focused on biodiversity, who can benefit from the working groups as the perfect collaborative space.

Once a member of the Community, you can select your skills from a preset list, in order to facilitate linkages among the community. In need of a collaborator with a specific specialisation? Whether the keywords are data sciences, environmental sciences or biotechnology, simply carry out a search for the skills you are looking for to identify potential matches.

The platform is also a great space to learn about upcoming events. Of immediate relevance to the community is the upcoming LifeWatch ERIC Biodiversity and Ecosystem eScience Conference in Seville, for which interested persons can already submit their abstract on the Community platform.

While many aspects of the platform can be browsed without registering, we recommend opening an account in order to benefit from the full range of resources available. Sign up now to enhance the community experience for everyone, put your range of abilities and knowledge at everyone’s disposal, in a mutual and sincere effort to foster open science.

If you require any assistance with any of the registration process or functionalities of the Community, please do not hesitate to get in touch with communications[@]lifewatch.eu.

Head over to the LifeWatch Community!

Ten remarkable new marine species from 2022

WoRMS Top ten 2022

As for previous years, the World Register of Marine Species, WoRMS (hosted by VLIZ, focal point of LifeWatch Belgium), has again released its annual list of the top-ten marine species described by researchers during the past year to coincide with World Taxonomist Appreciation Day on 19 March! 

If you were unaware of this celebration of all the work that taxonomists do, you can find more here and here.

Every day in labs, museums, and out on fieldwork, taxonomists are busy collecting, cataloguing, identifying, comparing, describing, and naming species new to science. Some 300 taxonomists globally also contribute their valuable time to keeping the World Register of Marine Species up to date. Today is a chance for those at WoRMS to thank their taxonomic editors for this important task. Let’s celebrate the work of taxonomists now with the WoRMS list of the top-ten marine species described in 2022 as nominated and voted for by taxonomists, journal editors and WoRMS users!

This top-ten list is just a small highlight of about 2,000 fascinating new marine species discovered every year (there were almost 1,700 marine species described in 2022 and added to WoRMS, including some 300 fossil species). Here is the top-ten:

How were the species chosen?

A call for nominations was announced in December 2022, sent to all editors of WoRMS and editors of major taxonomy journals, and posted openly on the WoRMS website and social media so anyone had the opportunity to nominate their favorite marine species. Nominated species must have been described between 1 January and December 31st, 2022, and have come from the marine environment (including fossil taxa). A small committee of volunteers (including both taxonomists and data managers) was brought together to decide upon the final candidates. The list is in no hierarchical order.

The final decisions reflect the immense diversity of animal groups in the marine environment (including crustaceans, corals, sponges, jellies and worms) and highlight some of the challenges facing the marine environment today. The final candidates also feature some particularly astonishing marine creatures, notable for their interest to both science and the public.

Each of these marine animals has a story. This year the chosen species cover the weird, the bewildering and the astonishing! We feature, amongst others, the cute-looking Fluffy Sponge Crab, the Japanese Retweet Mite (remember the Japanese Twitter Mite from the Top Ten 2021?), the mysterious King Ghidorah’s Branching Worm, the illustrious Satan’s Mud Dragon, and the 35 million year old Ballerina Sponge.

Image credit: Colin McLay and Western Australian Museum

This article was originally posted on the website of LifeWatch Belgium.

Voices of Women at LifeWatch ERIC for International Women’s Day

Voices of Women

In preparation for this year’s International Women’s Day, LifeWatch ERIC International Gender Officer, Africa Zanella, had a clear request: amplify women’s voices. As explored in the “Gender, Equity and Research” campaign for last year’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, statistically, we know that while more women than ever are getting involved in STEM, there are significant obstacles still to overcome for women in research. 

In light of International Women’s Day 2023, we have therefore created a podcast miniseries specifically dedicated to learning more about authentic experiences of women working in LifeWatch ERIC fields of interest. We asked scientists from our eight member states to talk candidly about their work and experience. The guests were invited to speak in pairs, which produced spontaneous and insightful conversations on these topics, facilitated by LifeWatch ERIC podcast host, Julian Kenny. Being of all ages and hailing from a diversity of backgrounds, the end result produced is an enriching range of experiences and contemporary points of view of women working in research today. Listening to their voices, our eyes are opened to their contribution to society, to science, and the potential offered by the European Union’s Gender Equality Strategy, which LifeWatch ERIC actively supports and incorporates into its everyday work life.

The guests featured in “Voices of Women” are:

The episodes will be released over the course of the week beginning 6 March and will be consolidated with an overview and considerations from LifeWatch ERIC International Gender Officer, Africa Zanella, interviewed by Chief Communication Officer, Sara Montinaro, to be released on 8 March (International Women’s Day). This podcast will examine the progress of the infrastructure as a whole in terms of achieving gender sustainability and equity, a year on from the appointment of LifeWatch ERIC’s International Gender Officer, and explore future plans to continue the commendable and tangible work that she has already set in motion.

The podcasts are available here below. They can also be found on Spotify, Google, Apple, and Amazon.







Horizon Europe project Blue-Cloud 2026 to enhance Open Science in support of ocean protection and restoration

Blue-Cloud 2026

Over the past decades, Europe has developed an impressive capability for aquatic environmental observation, data-handling and sharing, modelling and forecasting. This builds upon national environmental observation and monitoring networks and programmes, complemented with EU infrastructures such as the Copernicus satellite observation programme and related thematic services, the European Marine Observation and Data Network , as well as a range of environmental European RIs and major R&D projects. 

Within this framework, since October 2019, the pilot Blue-Cloud project combined both the interests of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), aiming to provide a virtual environment with open and seamless access to services for storage, management, analysis and re-use of research data, across borders and disciplines, and the blue research communities by developing a collaborative web-based environment providing simplified access to an unprecedented wealth of multi-disciplinary datasets from observations, analytical services, and computing facilities essential for blue science. 

Funded by Horizon Europe, Blue-Cloud 2026 aims at a further evolution of this pilot ecosystem into a Federated European Ecosystem to deliver FAIR & Open data and analytical services, instrumental for deepening research of oceans, EU seas, coastal & inland waters. It develops a thematic marine extension to EOSC for open web-based science, in support of the EU Green Deal, UN SDGs, the EU Destination Earth initiative, and the EU Mission “Restore Our Ocean and Waters by 2030”.

Blue-Cloud 2026 as a key link for EOSC and the Digital Twin of the Ocean

Over the course of 42 months starting in January 2023, the consortium is going to integrate more blue analytical services into the Blue-Cloud Virtual Research Environment, configure new thematic Virtual Labs, improving services for uptake of new data sets from a multitude of data originators and major e-infrastructures, and for discovery and access to their structured data collections.

The existing Blue-Cloud framework is already home to one of the most mature communities in EOSC, and can provide practical examples to younger communities on a variety of aspects ranging from interoperability to data federation, from FAIR practices to cross-domain interaction.

Blue-Cloud 2026 is co-coordinated by CNR and Trust-IT Services, with MARIS as technical coordinator, counting on a core team of partners such as VLIZ (focal point of LifeWatch Belgium), Ifremer, Mercator Ocean International, Seascape Belgium. Overall it mobilises a solid, multidisciplinary, committed team of 40 partners across 13 EU countries. The three-day kick-off meeting in Pisa, Italy, was hosted by CNR (National Research Council of Italy) in collaboration with Trust-IT, and provided the first official opportunity for the consortium to meet in person, take stock of the work performed in the pilot project and plan the key upcoming activities towards a successful implementation of the Blue-Cloud framework by 2026.

Read the full press release here.

Follow Blue-Cloud 2026 on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

‘SeaWomen’ expedition studying orcas and whales above the Arctic circle

SeaWomen expedition

This winter, LifeWatch Belgium provided a key contribution to the citizen science initiative ‘SeaWomen’, an expedition studying marine ecosystem change, orca and whale behaviour in northern Norway, 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, during the winter herring run.

The expedition was unique in many ways. The international team of 34 was exclusively women, non-binary and two-spirit peoples, thereby empowering women and minority groups. In addition, the team represented very diverse backgrounds and skillsets that enabled an interdisciplinary programme of activity, connecting marine and wider environmental science with art, photography, storytelling and more, with the core aim of collecting new knowledge about marine ecosystems in the region and collectively raising awareness about the ocean, and the effects of climate change on the natural world.

LifeWatch Belgium and the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), including Dr Elisabeth Debusschere, contributed expertise and equipment to the ‘SeaWomen’ expedition, including the loaning of a Soundtrap HF 600 (Ocean instrument), a hydrophone to monitor underwater sound, marine mammal and other marine life vocalisations. This complemented a behaviour programme focused on killer whales (Orcinus orca) and included in-water winter snorkelling to obtain photos, videos and observations of the orcas and whales, together with marine environmental measurements including ocean physics (temperature and salinity profiles) and eDNA samples.

Dr Kate Larkin (marine expert at the European Marine Observation and Data Network Secretariat) was also onboard: “This expedition was a completely new approach to positive climate action. All of the women onboard were volunteers, with a common motivation to increase knowledge and societal understanding about the Ocean, and how the Ocean and marine ecosystem is changing as a result of human impact, ranging from climate change to human activities at sea such as fishing, tourism, shipping and more. It was a pleasure to collaborate with VLIZ and LifeWatch Belgium together with other partners and the diverse team of talented women, to make this expedition a reality.”

This article was originally posted on LifeWatch Belgium by Dr Kate Larkin (EMODnet) and Dr Elisabeth Debusschere (VLIZ).

Call for nominations for the WoRMS Top-Ten Marine Species of 2022

WoRMS Marine Species 2022

Once again, taxonomists have continued to publish many wonderful new species throughout last year. With the end of 2022 it is time to think about nominations for The WoRMS Top Ten Marine Species of 2022!

The aim of this list is to highlight the fascinating discoveries of the numerous new marine species being made every year, to the wider public. The 2021 winners span the tree of life, from coccolithophores to jellyfish to whales – see the full 2021 list here.

WoRMS (run by VLIZ, focal point of LifeWatch Belgium) plans to release the list to coincide with World Taxonomist Appreciation Day – 19 March!  If you were unaware of this celebration of all the work that Taxonomists do, you can find more here, and here.  

Please submit your nominations for your favorite species via this form. You are welcome to share this message with colleagues!

The species must have been published in 2022 (validly published between 01/01/2022 and 31/12/2022), must be marine, and can be a fossil species.

Please include the completed form and:

  • A pdf of the paper in which the species was described.
  • At least one good image of the species (with copyright and ownership information).

Good examples will have a compelling story behind the description, e.g. rare or unusual morphology, an interesting name, importance to society e.g for conservation/ medical importance/ toxic/ dangerous.  

WoRMS also needs help deciding on the final list. Self-nomination for the decision panel is welcome.  The decisions will be made via email discussion/vote.  

Please send your nominations, offers to volunteer to join the decision committee, or questions to info@marinespecies.org with the subject ‘Top-Ten Marine Species’.

But hurry! The closing date for submission of nominations is Friday 3 February 2023 to enable the decision and preparation of the pages in time for 19 March 2023.

Celebrating 15 Years of WoRMS

WoRMS 15 years

In 2007, the digitally available European Register of Marine Species (ERMS) expanded into a World Register of Marine Species, et voila, WoRMS was born. WoRMS is hosted by VLIZ, which is the national focal point for LifeWatch Belgium. In 2022, WoRMS can be seen as the number one authoritative classification and catalogue of marine names.

WoRMS is managed by a small Data Management Team (DMT) and an elected Steering Committee (SC), but the actual driving force behind the high-quality content of WoRMS is the Editorial Board. Completing and correcting WoRMS requires an enormous effort and is entirely dependent on the expertise and time of the editors. On top of that, it is a race against time as species are at risk of disappearing due to changing environmental conditions such as warming, pollution and acidification, before they are discovered.

To celebrate its 15th birthday and 15 years of collaboration with (taxonomic) experts all over the globe, WoRMS designed an exclusive t-shirt, with proceeds used to coordinate and disseminate funds to the WoRMS editors. With the funds raised, editors will be able to continue to fill gaps in coverage, expand the content and enhance the quality of taxonomic databases, attract interns and students to assist in the verification of taxonomic information, and purchase scientific literature.

And there’s more! Check out all the stories below on the LifeWatch Belgium website in celebration of 15 years of WoRMS!

2 – Get to know the WoRMS editors here!

3 – The growth of WoRMS over the years

4 – Developing the database

5 – Setting priorities to address gaps

6 – Behind the scenes

7 – Taxonomy – a science, an art, or a battleground?

8 – The challenge of author names

9 – Dark literature

10 – Type localities

11 – Endless possibilities

12 – Supporting the volunteers

13 – Beyond classical taxonomy

14 – Who uses WoRMS?

15 – Not reinventing the wheel

Marine Regions Launches Extended Continental Shelves Dataset

Extended Continental Shelves Dataset

Marine Regions, the database managed by focal point of LifeWatch Belgium, VLIZ, is proud to have launched the first version of the Extended Continental Shelves dataset. This latest dataset contains the portion of the continental shelf that extends beyond 200 Nautical Miles. Similar to the Exclusive Economic Zones dataset, it consists of both the outer limits of these areas and their polygon representations. Marine Regions is a standard list of marine georeferenced place names and areas.

How does it work?

The Marine Regions Gazetteer is a standard list of marine georeferenced place names and areas. Beside this list, shapefiles of Maritime Boundaries are created and/or shared. The Marine Regions Gazetteer provides the link between the species registers and the species occurrence databases in the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone. Various web services of Marine Regions are part of the LifeWatch Belgium e-lab.

Please contact info@marineregions.org if your organisation is interested in contributing to Marine Regions.

More detailed information about the dataset can be found in the original article on the LifeWatch Belgium website.

Keeping Up with LifeWatch Belgium

LifeWatch Belgium

There’s been a lot going on at LifeWatch Belgium over summer 2022, so please flick through some of our favourite news stories from the LifeWatch Belgium website, where you can find the full versions of these featured articles.

Taxonomy and beyond: ecological trait information in Aphia and WoRMS

In 2018, the WoRMS Steering Committee identified “documenting relevant species traits” as one of the content priorities for WoRMS (hosted by the national focal point for LifeWatch Belgium, VLIZ). The relevance of traits and their integration with the taxonomy of WoRMS however already dates back to 2015, when Costello et al., 2015 prioritised 10 marine species traits to document: Taxonomy, Environment, Geography, Depth, Body size, Substratum, Mobility, Skeleton, Diet and Reproduction.

Taxonomy, which is not actually a trait, is the main goal of WoRMS, and geography and depth are covered by the distribution module in WoRMS. Environment and body size were considered as the most straightforward traits of this list; meaning this information is easy to find rapidly and can be applied across all taxa in WoRMS. Therefore, it was decided to first focus on collecting information for these two traits in WoRMS. For a long time, environment information has been included in WoRMS as the “environment flag”. This flag indicates whether a species is marine, brackish, freshwater and/or terrestrial. In addition, the “functional group” trait documents whether a species belongs to the benthos, plankton, nekton, etc.

Before 2019, both functional group and body size were documented in Aphia and WoRMS to some extent, but not systematically, and not for all species. To complement this trait information, the WoRMS Data Management Team started a “traits data mining exercise” in 2019. Thanks to the positive responses of many editors, environment is now 99.5% complete, functional group 76%, qualitative body size 45%, and quantitative body size 9%. These are the numbers for the accepted species in Aphia. Looking at the accepted, extant, marine species, the numbers are even higher: 100% complete for environment, 81% for functional group, 47% for qualitative body size, and 17% for quantitative body size. More statistics can be found here. Definitions of all traits and values currently available in WoRMS and Aphia can be consulted here. If you want to help in the completion of these traits, please contact info@marinespecies.org.

The Species Information Backbone, the development of which is supported by LifeWatch Belgium, aims at bringing together taxonomic and species-related data.

Original story here. Image credit: Pieterjan Verhelst, image available here.

The LifeWatch Data Cloud has been launched!

The LifeWatch Data Cloud provides an overview of biodiversity and ecosystem data and data products, interactive viewers to interact with the data, an analysis platform (R Studio environment) and code to analyse a variety of data. In the background, the LifeWatch Data Cloud is using the Flemish Supercomputer Center (VSC) resources to provide the users with a performant infrastructure. The initial idea of the LifeWatch Data Cloud was raised during LifeWatch Maritime Industry Advisory Board meetings organised in collaboration with the Blue Cluster, a network of Blue Economy players in Flanders. There was high demand from the maritime industry for a clear and user-friendly platform to consult all data and data products to be able use them for their company-specific applications. Since LifeWatch ERIC offers much more than marine data and tools, and wants to offer this service to other users as well, the cloud was expanded to include terrestrial and freshwater products and is now available to a variety of users.

For the User Day of the Flemish Supercomputer Center (VSC), which took place at Ghent University on 22 May 2022, Lennert Schepers from LifeWatch Flanders presented the LifeWatch Data Cloud and two use cases that are using the LifeWatch Data Cloud: (1) a scientific study that models plankton interactions and (2) the European Tracking Network community that uses the LifeWatch Data Cloud to analyse the movement and migration of aquatic animals at a pan-european scale. The presentation is available here and the aftermovie is available on the website of the VSC.

You are encouraged to try out the LifeWatch Data Cloud for your own applications. Please feel free to contact info@lifewatch.be if you have questions or need help. The LifeWatch Data Cloud was developed by VLIZ in the framework of the Flemish contribution to LifeWatch ERIC (funded by FWO), with support of the Blue Cluster and the Flemish Supercomputer Center (VSC).

Original story here.

Searching for synergies between IMEV and LifeWatch VLIZ

Plankton imagery instruments, deployed in situ or in the lab, can reveal abundance, biomass and size spectra of plankton and marine particles, improving our ability to study plankton community composition and their small-scale spatial distribution. Thanks to technological advancement in imagery, many marine research centres are acquiring an increasing number of instruments and data and are becoming highly specialised in this field. In this situation, collaboration among research stations that are using the same methods, instruments and similar workflows are key to meet a common goal: to produce interoperable and high quality imagery datasets from which biologically and ecologically meaningful plankton observations can be derived.

From 18 – 20 July 2022 a team of plankton imagery specialists from the Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV), the Quantitative Imagery Platform (PIQv) and the Center for Planktonic Collections (CCPv) from the Institut de la mer de Villefranche,  Sorbonne Université-CNRS, in France, visited the LifeWatch VLIZ team in Ostend. During the 3-day meeting, both teams shared their expertise, discussed data acquisition, processing and management, identified synergies among their respective projects and future collaborations, among others. It was a very fruitful meeting with action points to follow up in the coming months, until the next time when, hopefully, the team from Ostend will visit Villefranche sur mer. 

Imaging data and sensors acquired at VLIZ are part of the Flemish contribution to LifeWatch ERIC.

Original story here.