New report on marine microplastics
A new study commissioned by Seas at Risk VzW titled, “Microplastics in the marine environment: sources, impacts and recommendations”, was compiled by GMIT Microplastic Researchers (Dr João Frias, Dr Róisín Nash, Dr Elena Pagter, Sindhura Stothra Bhashyam, MSc) together with Malcolm Deegan from Maldeegan Productions, in Dublin. The publication of this report coincides with the […]
NEW PAPER on non-invasive genetic studies of seals
Check out our new paper in the journal Conservation Genetics Resources! Genetic studies of elusive species such as pinnipeds are often confined by the number of samples available which may result in knowledge gaps due to a lack of representative data. Hence, this study evaluated the applicability of various protocols for the collection and processing […]
Explaining decrease in size of Atlantic herring
The effects of environmental change and fishing activity on herring populations in the Celtic sea and the Northwest coast of Ireland are looked at in a new paper in the journal Ecological Informatics from MFRC and Marine Institute researchers. This study used Gradient boosting regression trees to identify trends in extended time series (1959–2012) of […]
Opening access to collections of fish scales and otoliths
A new paper in the journal Ecological Informatics from MFRC and Marine Institute researchers, highlights the value of scale and otolith collections and provides an open source system to facilitate curation and access. Globally, millions of fish scales and otoliths and other calcified structures are held within research centres, museums, universities, government institutions and private […]
MFRC research quantifies microplastic pollution in Galway Bay
MFRC researchers have reported for the first time, microbeads floating in Irish coastal waters. A manta trawl survey for microplastics in Galway Bay (a coastal embayment in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean) retrieved 1182 floating microplastic particles from a total surface seawater volume of 2039.86m3, giving an average microplastic density of 0.56 ± 0.33 MP m−3 […]
Andrew Power wins Irish Research Council award
Andrew Power, MFRC PhD student, was the winner of the clear communication of research category in the Irish Research Council’s Why Research Matters video competition. Andrew’s four minute video gives a clear introduction to his research, with fantastic video footage of the species that he his studying. For his PhD research, Andrew is analysing toxic […]
