Location: ICBM Wilhelmshaven (& Home Office & eventually working at HIFMB)

Start: August or September 2025

Duration: 3-6 Month

Background

Benthic fauna communities and habitats in the North Sea are strongly impacted by anthropogenic effects such as bottom trawling. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) were implemented to restrict anthropogenic impacts in order to protect biodiversity and ecosystem functions. A partial exclusion of bottom trawling fisheries was set in Borkum Reef and Sylt Outer Reef in 2023. A monitoring is needed to evaluate the success of MPA restrictions. Established macrofauna monitoring methods are usually destructive to the area they observe. There is a need for minimal invasive monitoring’s, like they can be done by Baited Remote Underwater Video Stations (BRUVS). This Method is being used more and more around the world and was applied in the German Bight since September 2020.

Results from first studies with this BRUVS and observer experiences pointed out possible opportunities for improvement of the BRUV-construction for the conditions in the North Sea and led to the aim to develop a second, optimized version of BRUVS for future long-term monitoring’s.

Assignment

The task of the student is to continue to develop and test a new generation of BRUVS and compare it to existing measurement systems like pelagic BRUVS, established BRUVS or even Video Sledges by participating on a research cruise and by analysing and comparing video material.

Requirements

The applicant should be studying (marine) environmental sciences or (marine) engineering/technics or marine sensor technology or have attended a comparable degree programme. An engineering background and knowledge in CAD is useful, but not mandatory.

The thesis can be written in English or German language.

Contact for further information:

Nicolas Bill – Nicolas.bill@uni-oldenburg.de

Dr. Sven Rohde – sven.rohde@uni-oldenburg.de