Research Scientist on Impacts of Fishing Activities on the Ecosystems
IFREMER – French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea
Lorient, France
Job profile
Within the research unit, at the ‘Fisheries Technology and Biology laboratory’ in Lorient, Brittany, He/she will work on the impacts of fisheries on the marine ecosystems.
General areas of responsibility (principal missions)
Two main topics are to be addressed:
- Seabed vulnerability. He/she will contribute to develop a coherent approach between the distinct management objectives for the fishing activities and for the protection of marine ecosystems. Underwater video for example allows some detailed mapping of the marine habitats and assessments of the capacity of ecosystems to resist or to be resilient in regards to perturbation. In the context of an integrated conservation approach, habitats modeling or spatial planning tools, can also be used and developed to find the best compromises between species conservation and fishing activities. The successful candidate is expected through innovative developments to improve knowledge in these fields. He/she will lead these research axis based from the unit’s monitoring facilities (scientific surveys on research vessels and on commercial fishing vessels in the Bay of Biscay and Celtic Sea);
- Vulnerability of harvested species (discarded, escaped or released individuals within the fishing process). Researchers from the team are already heavily involved in studying the fate of fishery discards and the escapement of fishes through selective gears but substantial issues remain to be investigated:
- The way fish escapes from selective devices could be studied by innovative approaches such as functional or behavioral ecology;
- Fish ability to recover from escapement, discards or release would be studied in collaboration with other IFREMER teams like the Unit of Functional Physiology of Marine Organisms (PFOM);
- The fate of discards once thrown back at sea in order to quantify their relative contributions to population dynamics and/or trophic networks.
Principal activities
- He/she contributes to these topics by developing new analytical approaches in order to improve our understanding of the fate of individuals faced to a fishing gear and the impacts to the ecosystems of the loss or survival of these individuals;
- He/she develops research through the preparation and coordination of projects related to these topics in response to grant proposals and will lead or be part of scientific projects in collaboration with fishermen and stakeholders;
- He/she participates to scientific surveys at sea;
- He/she promotes results through peer-reviewed scientific publications.
Collaborative work environment
Internal collaborative relationship: researchers of the fisheries technology and biology laboratory, and of other fisheries unit in Ifremer: MARine Biodiversity Exploitation and Conservation (MARBEC), fisheries Ecology and Models (EMH), Functional Physiology of Marine Organisms (PFOM).
External collaborative relationship: network of the International Canadian and French Research Group RECHAGLO, ICES scientific network.
Profile and expertise sought
Initial training
- PhD in Marine Ecology, Fishery sciences or related fields.
Personal qualities
- Independance, rigour, curiosity;
- Ability to work within a team, good relational and communication skills;
- Interest for integrated approaches and outcomes promotion.
Specific knowledge
- Marine ecology;
- Numerical ecology;
- Programming language (R, Matlab);
- Applied statistics;
- Good writing and orals skills in English;
- Knowledge in spatial planning and GIS.
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