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GiMaRIS

Since 2006 GiMaRIS specialises in marine research, inventory, & strategy solutions focusing on consultancy and monitoring projects in temperate Atlantic seas, the Ponto-Caspian and Indo-Pacific waters. GiMaRIS works mainly for governments, fisheries, port authorities, dredging companies and shipping companies. This concerns risk assessments, but also the development of management and control protocols aimed at minimizing the ecological impact of maritime activities in general and the thereby obliged monitoring. Fieldwork projects concern coral reef systems in Indonesia, surveys along the N American east coast, species assessments of the Wadden Sea and surveys of ports. The latter are done for exemption applications to the worldwide IMO ballast water convention. In addition Shellfish Associated Species Inventories (SASIs) are done in Irish, British, Danish, Swedish, German and Dutch waters to enable life shellfish transports while minimizing invasive species risks with the Shellfish Import Monitoring Protocol (SIMP). Other projects focus on fouling organisms on marine structures, in cooling water systems and underground sea-water systems.

GiMaRIS Tour

Additive value

The additive value of GiMaRIS becomes most apparent in projects in which correct species identifications are of the uttermost importance. Misidentifications and incomplete biodiversity assays have caused companies to unwillingly and unknowingly take unnecessary high risks when applying for tenders or when proceeding with their maritime activities and constructions. Vice versa, risks may be much lower than expected when for example so-called endangered species turn out to be invasive species. Natural regeneration mechanisms that depend on certain species being present, can play a critical role in the vulnerability of ecosystems and their ability to restore after a disturbance. To maintain knowledge at a high scientific level GiMaRIS runs various fundamental research projects in cooperation with research institutes and students worldwide. This includes for example the continuous monitoring project SETL that was started by GiMaRIS in 2006. On several sites worldwide and in the Netherlands all along the coast about 200 settlement plates are photographed and checked for fouling species by students on a three monthly basis.

GiMaRIS laboratory

In support of fieldwork research, the GiMaRIS laboratory in the Leiden BioScience Park enables aquarium studies and molecular analyses to be done, sometimes in cooperation with other companies and universities situated at the BioScience Park. More in general marine species varying from viruses and bacteria to macro-algae and animals can be identified within the molecular lab on the basis of their morphology and their DNA profile.