IMIS

Traditional monitoring techniques for ecosystem monitoring identifying are currently time consuming and expensive. By applying DNA-based techniques, GEANS aims to reduce time and costs, and make species identification more accurate. Pilot studies take a central role in proving these advantages. Among the pilot studies, one specifically aims for on the detection non-indigenous species (NIS), since accurate monitoring is a key prerequisite to limit the spread of NIS among harbours. Scrape samples, fouling plate samples, phytoplankton samples and zooplankton samples were taken in the the harbour of Ostend and analysed through metabarcoding and results were compared with traditional monitoring techniques in order to demonstrate the improvement of applying novel techniques. This data is the result of DNA-based spring and summer monitoring of benthic species in the framework of the GEANS NIS pilot at the harbour of Ostend by VLIZ in 2020.