MedZoo

MedZoo is an association of scientists willing to collaborate on the harmonisation of methods for study of the evolution of Mediterranean and Black Sea zooplankton in time and space.

Medzoo was created during the 37th CIESME congress in Barcelona in June 2004 and is functioning through the CIESM program on Zooplankton Indicators.

The aim is to develop and provide data on zooplankton as environmental indicator, in order to assess and forecast ecosystem changes in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Comparisons of bio-geographical variations across the sea basins are conducted through international co-operation and through the constitution of networks of institutes and experts. Coordinated monitoring programs, spatial surveys and re-processing of older archived samples will be organized and linked to data on climate change. Harmonization of sampling methods, treatment of the samples and treatment of the data will be achieved through workshops and collaborations.

The main objectives are:
   assemble and aggregate relevant information on composition-resolved time series;
   identify existing zooplankton collections;
   collect information on spatial surveys (cruises);
   build capacities for expertise and a experts’ network;
   raise awareness on the benefits of routine zooplankton observations.

Detailed goals:

1) Building the ability to determine the composition of past and present assemblages of zooplankton in different Mediterranean and Black seas basins through the collection of information on the status of existing collections, sampling methods, treatment of samples, data archiving, ownership of the data.

2) Improving the expertise in taxonomy through networks of experts, workshops, expert systems, students exchange.

3) Contribute to the identification of the Climatic Change impact on the Mediterranean and Black Sea zooplankton, indicator of the ecosystem state through retrospective analysis of historical time series, ancillary data acquisition, data banking and analysis.

History

Kick off : 37th CIESM Congress, Barcelona, 7 to 11 June 2004 during the Harmonization of zooplankton time series round table. ICES delegate – Luis VALDES

Launching of a CIESM program on Zooplankton Indicators

Activity since this date :
  2004 - Building of a Metadatabase
  2004 - Launching of a Pilot Study named ZOOPNEC with participation of the labs from Naples, Calvi, Villefranche, Marseille, Baleares, since mid-2004 (financed by France)
  October 2005 - Harmonization of methods – organization of an international workshop in in Villefranche/m, France (see report ) In the framework of this workshop new techniques for acquisition (hardware and software) and analyse were introduced.
  March 2006 ICES WGZE meeting in Villefranche (Working Group on Zooplankton Ecology); MedZoo delegates : MaLuz Fernandez des Pueles (Spain), Maria Grazia Mazzocchi (Italy), Lars Stemmann and Gabriel Gorsky (France).

Participants in the 2005 workshop : Albania, Algeria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, Portugal, Rumania, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine.

Perspectives

Harmonization of methods – different activities are and will be developed in the framework of the SESAME EU IP project, Eur-Oceans EU NoE as well as in the framework of CIESM.

SESAME - Southern European Seas: Assessing and Modelling Ecosystem changes.

Aim : Collection of historical and current multidisciplinary data sets, including long time series, will be conducted during the project in order to analyse the signals of environmental changes in the past and validate the models. Long-term and basin scale simulations with coupled circulation-ecosystem models will be used to predict the responses of ecosystems during the coming decades.One of the objectives will be the collection of the available information on zooplankton biodiversity, biomass and the corresponding ancillary data in the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. The MedZoo group is a partner of SESAME in this effort. Zooplankton is considered as indicator used to forecast the combined effects of the physical and biological parameters operating at the sea basin scale. Therefore, the MEDZOO group should be able to contribute efficiently to the success of the SESAME proposal.

Network of Experts – in building phase New techniques – see Zooscan – (http://www.zooscan.com)

Retrospective analysis of time series and of geographic ocean survey samples – will be undertaken in national and international programs (i.e. SESAME)

Implementation of databanks – MEDZOO metadatabank is in building phase

Formation and outreach – see (http://www.eur-oceans.org/index2.php) and will be developed in the CIESM and SESAME activities.