[en] In a context where various zooplankton series are collected and analyzed together, like in the ICES WGZE, one needs common tools and methods to analyze samples, but, most importantly, to homogenize measurements. The analysis of digital images of zooplankton brings an opportunity for such a homogenization.
Image analysis systems begin to offer an advantage over manual methods of counting / sizing zooplankton:
You get easily abundance and size. More sophisticated systems allow
group/genus recognition.
These new image analysis and recognition methods are still not well known among fisheries and zooplankton scientists.
Furthermore, the software is still experimental and has not been much confronted with real end- users or with the need to analyse a large amount of samples.
The 'ZooImage' workshop sponsored by GLOBEC/SPACC is an opportunity to mix developers and end-users together, so that end-users can learn and evaluate the new systems and, on the other hands, developers can obtain feedback about real applications of their systems and improve them consequently.
The final objective is to initiate a network of laboratories involved in large scale surveys using a common basic approach to count and identify zooplankton.
