MSc Internship; Exploring and creating the first (abundance) trend of freshwater fish

Datum & tijd: 1-7-2023 - 31-12-2023

Abundance trends are essential to monitor our vulnerable fish species. They can be used as an early warning signal for the decrease of native fish species, such as the bullhead, or the increase of an invasive exotic fish species, such as the recently discovered Caucasian dwarf goby. Although the number of obligated and standardized fish stock assessments in the Netherlands is substantial (since monitoring of fish for the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is implemented in our water-rich country), no national abundance trends are statically modeled.

We are looking for a student (or multiple) who is passionate about data analysis and is eager to work with big data and modeling (of fish data) in R (and QGIS). Together with Statistics Netherlands (CBS in Dutch), we would like to explore the possibilities of generating trends in abundance for different fish species from the standardized data collected with the WFD fish stock assessments by implementing varies models, such as GAM or GLM in R.

WHEN: Somewhere between July & December 2023 with a minimum of 2 months
WHERE: Combination of home and our office (Toernooiveld 1, Nijmegen)
WHO(S): You will be supervised by RAVON, with the (statistical) support of the CBS. Contact person; Mark Groen (m.groen@ravon.nl)