PISCIS

MONITORING NETWORK BY MONITORING ICHTHYOLOGICAL ASSEMBLAGES

PISCIS is the monitoring network of ichthyological assemblages operated since 2015 by Andromède Océanologie with the support of the Rhone Mediterranean and Corsica Water Agency. The characterization of ichthyological assemblages is carried out by annual regional campaign over the period mid-May/end of June, on the entire French Mediterranean coastline bordered by the three regions : Corsica, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA) and Occitanie.

Between 2015 and 2019, the PISCIS network has allowed the sampling of 120 stations, in parallel with the RECOR network on the coralligenous habitat and TEMPO on the Posidonia meadow (1 station at the lower limit of the meadow and 1 station at the intermediate depth of 15 meters.

The method chosen for the characterization of the ichthyological assemblages is a video acquisition carried out from four GoPro offering a 360° field of vision. For each site and each habitat (each station), three video blocks spaced a few tens of meters apart were immersed for an acquisition time of 10 minutes. Fish are counted by viewing the videos. Since 2020, the method used has changed to environmental DNA. The collection of environmental DNA samples is done using a technique developed by the company SPYGEN (http ://www.spygen.com/fr/), allowing the filtration of 30 liters of water through a 0.2 µm filtration capsule.

A station comparison tool exists in this project. This tool allows to compare the different metrics calculated and this at different spatial scales of comparison (Mediterranean, Region, Coastal water body). You can visualize all the results directly on the platform, by clicking on the button “Access to maps“, just below.

For the monitoring by eDNA (from 2020), the analysis of the identified species will allow the establishment of different indicators such as the specific richness indicator, the functional diversity indicator of fish, the Large Reef Fish Indicator, the crypto-benthic indicator, the thermal indicator of fish… These new indicators will be established by the UMR MARBEC (University of Montpellier) and Andromeda.

Contact : Thomas Bockel

Project Leader: Andromède Océanologie   –  andromede-ocean

Update frequency : Annual monitoring by region (each region, Occitanie/PACA West, PACA East and Corsica, is monitored every three years).

Partners : Rhone Mediterranean Water Agency

Study reports