Prof. Alan Deidun and Dr Adam Gauci, resident academics within the Department of Geosciences, recently participated within the first-ever BioBlitz event held in Cyprus by showcasing the use of the departmental underwater drone.
The drone was deployed within the Akrotiri nature reserve along the southern shores of Cyprus; its salt lake is a designated RAMSAR and Natura 2000 site, and its benthic mapping potential was showcased with staff stationed at the Akrotiri UK RAF base.
The drone was deployed within the Akrotiri nature reserve along the southern shores of Cyprus; its salt lake is a designated RAMSAR and Natura 2000 site, and its benthic mapping potential was showcased with staff stationed at the Akrotiri UK RAF base.
Prof. Deidun鈥檚 and Dr Gauci鈥檚 contribution was made possible through the COST Action Alien CSI, within which the two academics are participating and which aims to optimise citizen science protocols and campaigns aiming to report alien species. The underwater drone is just one of the diverse array of automated monitoring facilities held by the Physical Oceanography Research Group of the Department of Geosciences.
A BioBlitz event is a period of intense biological surveying, involving both certified and formally trained taxonomic experts as well as enthusiastic citizens, with the aim of recording all species within a designated area through non-destructive sampling. The surveying is normally conducted over a continuous period of time (e.g. 24 hours) and the BioBlitz event in Cyprus, the first of its kind on the island, involved sampling within different habitats, ranging from Mediterranean steppe and grassland, phrygana (equivalent to our garigue), maquis and woodland, salt marshes, coastal habitats to submerged ones.
