Project Goals

In Phase I of MGF-Nordsee, a comprehensive baseline status of the three marine protected areas was recorded. Now, in Phase II, there is a unique opportunity to track the direct effects of large-scale management measures in the German Marine Protected Areas Borkum Reef Ground and Sylt Outer Reef - Eastern German Bight of the North Sea from the very beginning.

We keep our ecosystem approach to get an overall picture of the changes from sediment structures, biogeochemical processes and benthic-pelagic coupling and different groups of organisms such as benthos and fish, to scenario-based modeling approaches.

Specifically, Phase II of MGF-Nordsee deals with two core objectives:

1) Investigating the physical, biological and biogeochemical MGF exclusion effects on the MPAs’ ecosystems.

2) Further development of an integrative monitoring concept that intercalibrates and combines alternative and conventional methods