Optoswim

I recently heard about Optoswim who are developing a system in which fish are encouraged to swim in a tank at certain speeds by following LED lights. Control of the swim speed can lead to control of the quality and health of the fish. The CEO is Sunil Kadri, who is also involved in Aquaculture Innovation.

It looks like Optoswim might have a lot of data which could be compared to agent based modelling.

References:
info from TSB
publication 1
publication 2
publication 3

Raptor "experiment"

There is evidence that birds form flocks to guard against predators (link, link) but other studies show no correlation (link, link).

It would be interesting to devise an experiment where a standard mathematical flocking model is used, with parameters such as flock size, flying speed, noise, and where a human user tries to catch birds of the flock using an interface such as a mouse/pointer directed model predator. The predator motion could be restricted to mimic a raptor, i.e. turning circle, acceleration, maximum speed.

Statistics of success rate (from the predator's point of view) versus parameters could then be measured.

This could all be automatic of course and driven by computer code, but the human interface gives an interesting way of engaging the public.

(One by product of such an experiment would be consideration of how different human subjects perform, with regard to age, gender etc).

Mixing in the Ocean

Mixing in the ocean occurs on several scales, the smallest scale being molecular. If a layer of warm, salty water lies above a layer of colder, fresher water, the heat and salt will tend to diffuse (spread out) downwards to make a single layer with intermediate temperature and salinity values. However, because heat diffuses faster than salt, the process can lead to local instabilities in the density structure which cause mixing within a layer many meters thick. The best-known example of this process, known as salt fingering, occurs where very salty water from the Mediterranean outflow mixes into the North Atlantic.

Read more: Ocean Mixing - sea, depth, oceans, temperature, salt, source, effect, salinity, Pacific http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Mi-Oc/Ocean-Mixing.html#ixzz1D4AHmOk3

State of the Seas

From ResearchProfessional: (the report can be found here)

"Northern Ireland assembly environment minister Edwin Poots has unveiled the first official report into the marine environment around the northern Irish coast.

Northern Ireland State of the Seas was compiled jointly by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute. It covers 14 different aspects of the marine envi

ronment ranging from fish and foodwebs to marine litter and underwater noise.

“This is a key time in managing our marine environment. We have an extremely rich and varied coastline with the marine species in our seas contributing to over half the overall biodiversity in Northern Ireland. Other important marine resources include fisheries, tourism, shipwrecks and beaches. Our economy is reliant on sea transport and on our ports,” said Poots, in a statement. “There is great potential for the emerging marine renewables industry which could exploit the tidal, wave and offshore wind around our shores.”"