External cooperation

                                                             

Institute of Hydrobiology, Biology Centre CAS                                      

Ichthyoplanktonic and fry trawls and seines for sampling young-of-the-year fish in open water, near the flat bottom and in macrophyte beds.

Trawl nets (several types of frame and frameless trawls up to 10 m height, up to 40 m width, including electrified ones) towed by one or two boats (Ota Oliva - length 8 m, engine power 64 HP, Thor Heyerdahl - length 10 m, engine power 115 HP) for quantitative surveys of pelagic habitats.

Purse seines (various types, height up to 12 m, length up to 120 m) distributed from a special catamaran ship for quantitative surveys of pelagic habitats.

Beach seines (various mesh sizes, net length 10 to 200 m) for quantitative surveys of unstructured littoral (shallowest benthic) habitats.

Electrofishing devices (battery and motor-borne back-pack devices for use in smaller waters, two special 6 m long electrofishing boats equipped with a deep-water aggregate with an output voltage of up to 600 V for surveying deep-waters of reservoirs and lakes) for surveys of structured littoral habitats.

Multi-mesh gill nets (standardized with twelve mesh sizes ranging from 5 to 55 mm, height 1.5 or 3 m, length 30 m, also large mesh with mesh sizes 70 to 135 mm, height 1.5 or 3 m, length 40 m) installed in a depth-stratified scheme for qualitative and semi-quantitative surveys of all types of benthic and pelagic habitats.

An acoustic telemetry system (91 Lotek Wireless Inc. type WHS3250 receivers operating at 76 kHz) to monitor fish behavior and occurrence along with environmental background monitoring with HOBO Pendant® temperature/light data loggers and a mobile weather station.

OregonRFID's passive telemetry system for tracking aquatic animal migrations in smaller streams and reservoirs.

Remotely controlled cameras (Observer from Subsea Tech, SplashCam Delta Vision HD), a system of self-collecting cameras (GoPro) and scuba divers for direct underwater observations.

Surveys of populations size, biology and ecology of European catfish in lakes, reservoirs and rivers using longlines.

Acoustic estimates of the abundance, biomass and size composition of fish stocks (vertical and horizontal monitoring) and monitoring the spatio-temporal distribution and behavior of fish in large water bodies (mobile and stationary monitoring) using Simrad EK60 and EK80 echo sounders operating at frequencies 38, 120, 200 and 333 kHz (supporting chirp and continuous signal) and dual-frequency identification sonar (DIDSON).

Analyzes of the effects of piscivorous predators on fish populations in flowing and still waters.