Between 31 August and 4 September, and subsequently from 7 to 10 September, Martin Bláha took part in fish monitoring and the sampling of macrozoobenthos communities in watercourses in Saxony as part of the new Interreg project OREaqua, together with colleagues from the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences in České Budějovice. This project focuses on the analysis of fish communities and the genetic population structure of brown trout, as well as the assessment of macrozoobenthos communities and potential parasites of salmonids. On the Saxonian side, representatives from the Technical University of Dresden and the Saxon State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection in North Rhine-Westphalia (LANUV) are taking part. Over the course of these 14 days, 29 sites were visited, predominantly on the Saxon side from the Aš to Dresden, where fish monitoring was carried out, and samples of macrozoobenthos and eDNA were collected. Sampling will continue over the next four weeks, with further colleagues from FROV taking part. Part of samples from this intensive sampling campaign will subsequently be processed in FROV’s molecular laboratories.
