Earlier this week, I participated in a beach sampling activity. By using a small fishnet from the beach, we scientifically sample the shallow coastal waters with the goal to get an impression of the fish community in those waters. And as we do it on a regular basis, we hope to be able to track seasonal patterns.
We have done the sampling since earlier this year and the focus has been on juvenile flatfish species, mainly plaice.
In the last weeks, it has been beautiful and (very) hot weather. Owing to the heat, the expectation was that the coastal water is pretty warm, most likely even too warm for the fish we're interested in (e.g. above their ecological threshold). So we were not expecting these kind of catches:
Theoretically in the last couple of years, the shallow coastal water has been for a couple of summer weeks too warm for the flatfish (plaice). An effect of the increasing global temperatures. So the fish should find other waters to avoid the heat, or adopt to/deal with the heat. By sampling we hope to be able to see if the fish are still in the too warm waters and in what physical condition they are. If not they might have moved to deeper waters and hopefully are able to survive there.
I'll provide an update on the catches later this week.
