Thalassa CAMANOC
Cruise plan
| Cruise Info. | |
| Ship name (ship code) | Thalassa (35HT) |
| Cruise identifier | CAMANOC |
| Cruise period | 2014-09-15 — 2014-10-14 |
| Status | Completed |
| Port of departure | Brest, France |
| Port of return | Brest, France |
| Purpose | Research |
| Objectives | The English Channel hosts a diversified benthic, demersal and pelagic fauna largely exploited. In the context of Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries and following the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) recommendations, we need to establish a state of the art of the "western English Channel" ecosystem and to monitor it in the coming years. This can only be achieved by gathering complete data covering a maximum of compartments of this system. The present CAMANOC survey (Pluridisciplinary survey of western Channel) aims at sampling the entire ecosystem: hydrology, planktonic compartments including fish eggs and larvae, benthic invertebrates, oelaoic, demersal and benthic fish and ceohalooods, marine birds and mammals. To do so, the entire western English Channel will be sampled by complementary gears: hydrological probe, niskin bottle, high frequency measurements systems such as Ferry Box, LOPC, plankton nets, GOV trawl, pelagic trawl, grab, dredge, ROV for sub-marine video, multibeam echosounders and visual observations. After treatment and analysis, the data acquired will be used to describe the species composition of biological assemblages (fish, plankton, benthos) to characterise their habitats and spatial distributions, to understand the food web structure and to establish a set of indicators related to the ecological state and the descriptors from the MSFD. Furthermore, the sampling of particular stations with a set of gears will allow, by comparison with historical data, to determine the impact of climate change on the composition of benthic invertebrates assemblages, which are known to integrate such change. Finally, samples will be used to update maturity curves and length-at-age relationships needed for stock assessment and cephalopod abundance will be used to estimate recruitment. |
| Chief scientist | Morgane Travers-Trolet (IFREMER Channel and North Sea Centre) |
| NPRC |  (1.68 MB) |
| Ocean/sea areas | |
| General | English Channel |
| Track charts | (0.21 MB) |
