Description
Summary:The ultimate goal is to stop the decline of the European eel population. For this purpose we need to understand the underlying cause of the decline. In this project we will determine the reproduction capacity of silver eels from different locations and the impact of diseases on their physical fitness. Furthermore we aim to provide management tools allowing the formulation of reliable decisions for eel ecosystems and eel fisheries management. For this we will estimate the capacity of yellow eel to transform into the downstream migratory silver eel (silvering'). Finally we aim to provide fundamental knowledge on the reproduction process, which is likely to be critical for the recruitment of the species. This knowledge might be used in future studies to develop a procedure for artificial reproduction.