"Assessment of the interactions between corals, fish and fisheries in order to develop monitoring and predictive modelling tools for ecosystem-based management in the deep waters of Europe and beyond" - CoralFISH
Funding Year: 2007
Funding Scheme: Large-scale integrating project
Project Duration: 48 months
Total Project Value: €11.4m
EU Grant-Aid: €6.99m
Grant-Aid to Ireland: €1,142,066
Lead Partner: National University of Ireland, Galway (Ireland)
Irish Partner(s):
- University College Cork
- O'Malley Fisheries
Project Summary
CoralFish brings together a unique consortium of deep-sea fisheries biologists, ecosystem researchers/modellers, economists and a fishing industry SME, who will collaborate to collect data from key European maine eco-regions. CoralFISH will:
- Develop essential methodologies and indicators for baseline and subsequent monitoring of closed areas;
- Incorporated fish into coral ecosystem models to better understand coral fishcarrying capacity;
- Evaluate the distribution of deepwater bottom fishing effort to identify areas of potential interaction and impact upon coral habitat;
- Use genetic fingerprinting to assess the potoential erosion of genetic fitness of corals due to longterm exposure to fishing impacts;
- Construct bio-economic models to assess management effects on corals and fisheries to provide policy options, and;
- Produce as a key output, habitat suitabilitymaps both regionally and for OSPAR Area V to identify areas likely to contain vulnerable habitat. The latter will provide the EU with the tools to address the issues raised by the UNGA resolution.
Further information on this project is available on the project website. Details of the deep-water coral province discovered on the west coast of Ireland by the project team are also available.