Visfauna - Juvenile and adult fishes in riparian habitats along the river Yser in Flanders, Belgium

Occurrence Observation
Latest version published by Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) on Dec 12, 2025 Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
Publication date:
12 December 2025
License:
CC0 1.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 5,824 records in English (110 KB) - Update frequency: not planned
Metadata as an EML file download in English (19 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (13 KB)

Description

Visfauna - Juvenile and adult fishes in riparian habitats along the river Yser in Flanders, Belgium is a species occurrence dataset published by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). The dataset contains over 5,800 fish occurrences sampled in 2008 in riparian habitats along the river Yser. The dataset includes 22 fish species. The data are collected to evaluate the role of restored riparian habitats for the spawning and nursery of juvenile fish and are discussed in Mouton et al. 2011. The dataset also includes the length of the caught fishes. Issues with the dataset can be reported at https://github.com/LifeWatchINBO/data-publication/tree/master/datasets/visfauna-ijzer-occurrencesTo allow anyone to use this dataset, we have released the data to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). We would appreciate it however if you read and follow these norms for data use (http://www.inbo.be/en/norms-for-data-use) and provide a link to the original dataset (https://doi.org/10.15468/keplkx) whenever possible. If you use these data for a scientific paper, please cite the dataset following the applicable citation norms and/or consider us for co-authorship. We are always interested to know how you have used or visualized the data, or to provide more information, so please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata, opendata@inbo.be or https://twitter.com/LifeWatchINBO.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 5,824 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Occurrence (core)
5824
MeasurementOrFacts 
5788

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Mouton A, Brosens D, Desmet P (2025). Visfauna - Juvenile and adult fishes in riparian habitats along the river Yser in Flanders, Belgium. Version 9.6. Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). Occurrence dataset. https://doi.org/10.15468/keplkx

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 0ac24b3c-feb9-48d5-bf02-da4a103f024e.  Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Belgian Biodiversity Platform.

Keywords

Occurrence; Observation; juvenile fish; riparian habitat; river bank; spawning ground; foreshore; water management; Occurrence

Contacts

Ans Mouton
  • Metadata Provider ●
  • Originator ●
  • Point Of Contact
Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
BE
Dimitri Brosens
  • Metadata Provider ●
  • Originator
Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) / Belgian Biodiversity Platform
BE
Peter Desmet
  • Metadata Provider ●
  • Originator
Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
BE

Geographic Coverage

Riparian habitats along the river Yser in Flanders, Belgium. The river enters Belgium in the province of West Flanders and drains into the sea near the town of Nieuwpoort.

Bounding Coordinates South West [50.9, 2.6], North East [51.17, 2.87]

Taxonomic Coverage

All 22 species in this dataset are fishes (Actinopterygii). The top 3 recorded species are Abramis brama (29%), Rutilus rutilus (29%), and Gasterosteus aculeatus (14%).

Kingdom Animalia (animals)
Class Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes)
Species Abramis brama (common bream), Alburnus alburnus (bleak), Anguilla anguilla (European eel), Barbatula barbatula (stone loach), Blicca bjoerkna (silver bream), Carassius gibelio (Prussian carp), Cobitis taenia (spined loach), Cyprinus carpio (common carp), Esox lucius (northern pike), Gasterosteus aculeatus (three-spined stickleback), Gobio gobio (gudgeon), Gymnocephalus cernuus (Eurasian ruffe), Leuciscus idus (ide), Perca fluviatilis (European perch), Platichthys flesus (European flounder), Pseudorasbora parva (stone moroko), Pungitius pungitius (ninespine stickleback), Rhodeus amarus (European bitterling), Rutilus rutilus (common roach), Sander lucioperca (zander), Scardinius erythrophthalmus (common rudd), Tinca tinca (tench)

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2008-06-01 / 2008-10-16

Sampling Methods

The juvenile fish were sampled using electrofishing, between June and September 2009. The number of individuals was recorded, as well as fork length (tip of snout to fork of tail in millimeter).

Study Extent Five microhabitat sites for each of the four riparian mesohabitat types along the river Yser in Flanders, Belgium.
Quality Control All records are validated.

Method step description:

  1. Electrofishing was used to sample the riparian habitats.

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Mouton A, Buysse D, Stevens M, Van den Neucker T, Coeck J (2011) Evaluation of riparian habitat restoration in a lowland river. River Research and Applicatioins 28(7): 845-857. https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.1500

Additional Metadata

Purpose
Alternative Identifiers 0ac24b3c-feb9-48d5-bf02-da4a103f024e
https://ipt.inbo.be/resource?r=visfauna-ijzer-occurrences