Applied Marine Ecology

After the successful completion of the course, students should be able to:

• Understand the principles of ecological monitoring and state variables
• Understand and apply the basic principles of sampling design for the estimation of the state of a population/biocommunity/ecosystem
• Understand the issue of detectability in the marine environment and apply the proper methods to adequately address it
• Understand and apply in ecological studies the most common methods of ecological monitoring such as counts in fixed surfaces, distance sampling, mark-recapture, removal methods, repetitive recording of presence/absence
• Know the most appropriate methods of ecological monitoring for each of the main groups of marine species
• Use special software for the analysis of ecological monitoring data
• Use this software in environmental impact assessments, monitoring studies in marine protected areas, the implementation of European legislation (Habitats Directive, Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Marine Spatial Planning Directive etc) and in marine research
• Analyze real ecological monitoring data and drafting ecological studies
• Communicate and disseminate the results of ecological monitoring studies

• Search for, analysis and synthesis of data and information, with the use of the necessary technology
• Working independently
• Sampling design and project management
• Production of creative and inductive thinking

The course includes the following topics:

• Multivariate statistical analysis of ecological data, biocommunities features, distance and similarity coefficients of samples, classification analysis, multidimensional scaling - use of Primer software.
• Methods of ecological monitoring - State Variables - Methods of abundance estimation - Assessment of detectability - methods for visual surveys in the marine environment.
• Abundance Estimation with Distance Sampling methods - Applications in the marine environment – Detectability estimation - Using the DISTANCE software for the analysis of distance sampling data.
• Capture-recapture methods for closed and open populations (Petersen, Schnabel, Jolly Sever) - Applications in the marine environment.
• Removal methods (change-ratio, Eberhardt, Capture-Effort) - Applications in the marine environment.
• Presence-absence data - Estimation of probability of presence (occupancy) – Occupancy models - Using PRESENCE software.

• Katsanevakis S, Issaris, Kolovogiannis V, Applied Marine Ecology: Ecological Monitoring. Department of Marine Sciences, University of the Aegean [in greek]
• Krebs CJ, 1999. Ecological Methodology, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley-Longman.
• Katsanevakis S, Weber A, Pipitone C, Leopold M, Cronin M, Scheidat M, Doyle TK, Buhl-Mortensen L, Buhl-Mortensen P, D'Anna G, de Boois I, Dalpadado P, Damalas D, Fiorentino F, Garofalo G, Maximiliano Giacalone VM, Hawley KL, Issaris Y, Jansen J, Knight CM, Knittweis L, Kroncke I, Mirto S, Muxika I, Reiss H, Skjoldal HR, Voge S, 2012. Monitoring marine populations and communities: review of methods and tools dealing with imperfect detectability. Aquatic Biology 16: 31-52.