Cruise report 64PE524 - ReViFES Version 3

This cruise was carried out for the ReViFES project ‘North Sea Reef Vitalization for Ecosystem Services (North Sea ReViFES)’. The ReViFES project started in 2020 and aims to investigate in how far reefs in the North Sea provide additional value to ecosystem biodiversity and functioning, including ecosystem services such as food provision, spill over of commercial species, carbon storage and increased food web complexity. To attain this, the project studies multiple types of reefs in the North Sea, including flat oysters (Ostrea edulis), mussel beds (Mytilus edulis), Ross worm (Sabellaria spinulosa), sand mason (Lanice conchilega), horse mussels (Modiolus modiolus) and geogenic reefs (rocks). The aim is to generalise observations across all these reef types and assess how reefs with high densities of flat oysters differ from the other types. The project aims to investigate reefs in the most undisturbed form possible, realising that any reefs in the North Sea will have been influenced by humans. The various aspects of the project are investigated by filming the seabed using a drop cam / towed video system, sediment grabs (box corer & Hamon grab), water samples, zooplankton traps, eDNA and the placement of cages to catch large species such as fish, crabs, whelks and lobsters. The ReViFES carried out by a consortium of the Netherlands Institute of Sea Research, Wageningen University & Research, Waardenburg Ecology, TU Delft, van Oord, WWF, the North Sea Foundation, the Ministry of LNV, Ark, CIV den Oever, Natuur & Milieu, Roem van Yerseke, Sas Consultancy and is funded by NWO TTW Open Technology programme (project number 17671) with cofunding from the consortium partners.