Biofouling or the accumulation of microorganisms, benthic plants, algae and/or small animals on artificial surfaces and infrastructures at sea, is an important cause of structural or technical damage to ships and coastal or offshore constructions. Three important groups of hard substrate biofouling species in the Belgian part of the North Sea have a planktonic larval phase: barnacles, bivalves and gastropods. LifeWatch collects regular data series for the zooplankton in the water column of the BPNS at several stations. This allows the quantification of the abundances of the biofouling larval stages through the year on the Belgian coast.
Below you can find a list of biofouling species present in the BPNS for each main group together with some interactive graphs visualizing time series of these biofouling groups. These graphs can be reproduced by any user following the R script at the end of the page.
Time series of larval densities of biofouling species
for the different stations in the Belgian part of the North Sea
Cirripeda nauplius larvae
Cirripeda cypris larvae
Bivalve larvae
Gastropod larvae
