Claude Belpaire

Claude Belpaire
Research Institute for Nature and Forest | INBO

About

125
Publications
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3,926
Citations
Citations since 2017
19 Research Items
1414 Citations
2017201820192020202120222023050100150200
2017201820192020202120222023050100150200
2017201820192020202120222023050100150200
2017201820192020202120222023050100150200

Publications

Publications (125)
Article
Adjusted tidal barrier management (ATBM, setting tidal doors ajar during tidal rise) is currently applied in Belgium to improve glass eel passage through tidal gates. However, salt intrusion in the receiving waters due to upwelling and accumulation of saline groundwater as a result of intensive drought put severe pressure on the unrestrained use of...
Article
Full-text available
European eel is thought to be a symbol of the effects of global change on aquatic biodiversity. The species has persisted for millions of years and faced drastic environmental fluctuations thanks to its phenotypic plasticity. However, the species has recently declined to historically low levels under synergistic human pressures. Sublethal chemical...
Article
The transition from marine to freshwater is a challenging task for juvenile eels. This critical step in the early eels’ life is preceded by a metamorphosis from the oceanic larval to the continental glass eel stage, requiring major energy‐demanding morphological, physiological and behavioural modifications during which time these animals do not fee...
Poster
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Until recently, Belgium was spared from the establishment of Asian weatherfishes, globally spreading IAS by intentional and unintentional spillover from the food and aquarium trade. In spring 2019 however, some individuals were captured in a small pond in a nature reserve close to an area across the border with The Netherlands where a proliferating...
Article
Full-text available
European Biota Quality Standards (EQSbiota), for compounds with low water solubility and high biomagnification, were created to sustain water quality and protect top predators and humans from secondary poisoning. In reality, for multiple compounds, an exceedance of these standards is often reported in literature without a decrease in ecological wat...
Article
Full-text available
Detrimental effects of chemical pollution—primarily caused by human activities—on aquatic ecosystems have increasingly gained attention. Because of its hydrophobic qualities, mercury is prone to easily bioaccumulate and biomagnify through the food chain, decreasing biodiversity and eventually also affecting humans. In the present study, accumulated...
Article
Full-text available
This Corrigendum corrects an error in Table 2 that was published in Breine et al. (2021) on the pages 114–115: the line concerning the weatherfish Misgurnus fossilis (Linnaeus, 1758) on the page break was erroneously removed during publication and is added here.
Article
Full-text available
The first fish-based index to assess the ecological quality of lowland rivers in Flanders (Belgium) is based on data obtained from different fishing techniques without considering the gear specificity. As a consequence, this index could not be intercalibrated with other European indices which concentrate on one gear type only. In order to comply wi...
Technical Report
Full-text available
The Joint EIFAAC/ICES/GFCM Working group on eels (WGEEL) met by correspondence and video conference from September 7 – 10 September and 27 September – 4 October in 2021 to assess the state of the European eel and its fisheries, investigate the effects of contaminants on the reproductive capacity of the eel stock, discuss the findings of WKFEA, furt...
Article
Full-text available
Many aquatic ecosystems are under persistent stress due to influxes of anthropogenic chemical pollutants. High concentrations can harm entire ecosystems and be toxic to humans. However, in case of highly hydrophobic compounds, their low water solubility precludes direct measurement in water, and thus alternative monitoring strategies are needed. In...
Article
Multiple eel species of the genus Anguillidae are under anthropogenic pressure. This review presents strong evidence that chemical pollution is a driving force behind the cata- strophic decline in recruitment and abundance of both the European (Anguilla anguilla) and the American eel (Anguilla rostrata). In response to this crisis, stock and habita...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Each Member State needs to report every 6 years (2013-2019, 2025…) to the European Commission (EC) about the conservation status of habitats and species present in each biogeographical region. This document presents the applied method and results for the period 2013-2018 of the species present in Flanders (northern Belgium). Flanders is nearly comp...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Each Member State needs to report every 6 years (2013-2019, 2025…) to the European Commission (EC) about the conservation status of habitats and species present in each biogeographical region. This document presents the reporting files for the period 2013-2018 of the fish species present in Flanders (northern Belgium). The criteria used for data co...
Article
Plastic pollution is continuously growing on a global scale and emerging as a major environmental hazard. Smaller-sized plastics, so-called microplastics (<5 mm), are considered as being omnipresent throughout the aquatic environment, yet freshwater ecosystems have received little attention so far and are still largely unstudied. Present study aims...
Article
Several aspects of the life cycle of the critically endangered European eel (Anguilla anguilla) remain poorly understood. One such aspect is the broad-versus narrow-head dimorphism, and how this impacts their overall performance at different stages of their life cycle. At the yellow eel stage, the phenotypes show a trophic divergence. We investigat...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This annual report provides a summary of the status of the indicators concerning the European Biodiversity Strategy targets. For Target 1, the conclusions at the Flemish level are in line with the EU Mid Term Review. For example, a small number of habitats and species of the Habitat Directive are improving slightly, but the majority are still in...
Article
This work examined three different phenotypes of the yellow-eel stage of the European eel Anguilla anguilla, broad-heads, narrow-heads and eels with an intermediate head shape. The aim was to see whether broad-headed A. anguilla, which generally consume harder, larger prey, such as crustaceans and fish, exerted greater bite force than the narrow-he...
Article
Full-text available
European eel (Anguilla anguilla) recruitment has been declining at least since the early 1980s at the scale of its distribution area. Since the population is panmictic, its stock assessment should be carried out on a range-wide basis. However, assessing the overall stock during the continental phase remains difficult given its widespread distributi...
Article
Xenobiotics such as organochlorine compounds (OCs) and metals have been suggested to play a significant role in the collapse of European eel stocks in the last decades. Several of these pollutants could affect functioning of the nervous system. Still, no information is so far available on levels of potentially neurotoxic pollutants in eel brain. In...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Vlaanderen onderschreef de Europese doelstelling om tegen 2020 het verlies van biodiversiteit te stoppen. Al in 2001 engageerde de Europese Unie zich om op haar grondgebied het verlies van biodiversiteit tegen 2010 te stoppen. Deze doelstelling werd evenwel niet gehaald (EEA, 2010). Bijna een kwart van de wilde soorten is met uitsterven bedreigd in...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Publisher: Flemisch Environmental Agency, Mechelen, p. 94, 2010, report in Dutch.
Article
Full-text available
The Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) has been performing standardized fish stock assessments in Flanders, Belgium. This Flemish Fish Monitoring Network aims to assess fish populations in public waters at regular time intervals in both inland waters and estuaries. This monitoring was set up in support of the Water Framework Directive,...
Technical Report
Full-text available
At the request of the Agency for Nature and Forests (ANB), we investigated the feasibility of grouping 145 European and Flemish priority species into so called multispecies action or recovery plans. As a starting point, we used the classification into landscape and ecological species profiles of Van Uytvanck & Goethals (2014). To add species to the...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Common Implementation Strategy for the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC)
Conference Paper
During EELIAD project, we examined effects of contamination by metals, POPs (including PCB) and introduced parasites on life history traits of 450 silver eels sampled across Europe. Our results showed a positive relationship between age and latitude, while size & weight at silvering were correlated to catchment characteristics. Growth rate was link...
Conference Paper
Pollutants are a possible cause of declines in yellow eel recruitment to L. Ontario since the 1980s. L. Ontario eels accumulate dioxin-like compounds (DLCs) to the same extent as lake trout, which suffered embryo mortality from maternally-derived DLCs. Sexual maturation transfers lipids and associated persistent, hydrophobic contaminants to oocytes...
Article
Red Lists are used to assess the extinction risk of species. Regional IUCN criteria were applied to categorise 42 indigenous freshwater fish species in Flanders into Red List categories. As such, three species are assessed as Regionally Extinct, eight as Critically Endangered, two as Endangered and eight as Vulnerable. A further five species are co...
Article
Beside the possible illegal use of malachite green in aquaculture, other familiar dyes could also been applied by fraudulent producers due to their antiseptic and antibacterial activity. In this contribution, a new sensitive multi-residue method was developed to determine triarylmethane, xanthene, phenothiazine and phenoxazine dyes in fish by ultra...
Article
Relationships between the presence of PCBs, OCPs and metals in aquatic ecosystems and the ecological water quality were investigated by combining datasets of long-term monitoring of chemicals in European eel (Anguilla anguilla, N = 1156) in Flanders (Belgium) and the Ecological Quality Ratio (EQR), based on the assessment of fish assemblages at 185...
Article
Several temperate freshwater eel stocks have experienced unsustainable declines, yet to be explained. The decline of lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) in Lake Ontario has been linked to aryl-hydrocarbon receptor agonists such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins/dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl-PCBs), and polychlor...
Book
Full-text available
Given the impact of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) on fish, both at individual and population level, it may be expected that these substances impede the achievement of international objectives aiming at restoring and securing the quality of the environment, nature and biodiversity. More specifically, the quality objectives for natural habita...
Article
Understanding the effects of chronic exposure to pollutants on the genome and transcriptome of diadromous fish populations is crucial for their resilience under combined anthropogenic and environmental selective pressures. The catadromous European eel (Anguilla anguilla L.) has suffered a dramatic decline in recruitment for three decades, necessita...
Article
Understanding the effects of chronic exposure to pollutants on the genome and transcriptome of diadromous fish populations is crucial for their resilience under combined anthropogenic and environmental selective pressures. The catadromous European eel (Anguilla anguilla L.) has suffered a dramatic decline in recruitment for three decades, necessita...
Article
Full-text available
Background Genomic and transcriptomic approaches have the potential for unveiling the genome-wide response to environmental perturbations. The abundance of the catadromous European eel (Anguilla anguilla) stock has been declining since the 1980s probably due to a combination of anthropogenic and climatic factors. In this paper, we explore the trans...
Article
Implementation of the Controlled Reduced Tide (CRT) technique could increase the total surface of tidal freshwater marshes in Europe and ease implementation of restoration projects in coastal defense and riverine ecosystems. The goal was to determine whether a regularly flooded area connected to a freshwater tidal river could act as an important fo...
Article
Abstract – Downstream migration of female silver eel Anguilla anguilla (L.) was studied by remote telemetry in the lower part of the River Meuse (Belgium and the Netherlands) using a combination of nine detection stations and manual tracking. N = 31 eels (L T 64–90 cm) were implanted with active transponders and released in 2007 into the River Berw...
Data
Full-text available
Downstream migration of female silver eel Anguilla anguilla (L.) was studied by remote telemetry in the lower part of the River Meuse (Belgium and the Netherlands) using a combination of nine detection stations and manual tracking. N = 31 eels (L T 64–90 cm) were implanted with active transponders and released in 2007 into the River Berwijn, a smal...
Article
Nearly 263 000 individual length–weight (L/W) data, collected during 2839 fish stock assessments between 1992 and 2009, were used to calculate L/W relationships (W = aLb) of 40 freshwater fish species from Flanders (Belgium). Roach Rutilus rutilus, perch Perca fluviatilis, three‐spine stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus, gudgeon Gobio gobio and Euro...
Article
The existence of two morphotypes, broadheaded and narrowheaded, in European eels Anguilla anguilla is common knowledge among fishermen and eel biologists in Europe. To test whether European eels really are dimorphic in head shape, a total of 277 specimens from two locations in Belgium (Scheldt–Lippenbroek and Lake Weerde), in combination with a lar...
Article
Dioxins, furans and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were analysed in muscle tissue from yellow phased European eel (Anguilla anguilla) from 38 sites in Belgium. Dioxin concentrations in eel vary considerably between sampling locations, indicating that yellow eel is a good indicator of local pollution levels. Measured levels of dioxin-l...
Article
Full-text available
Almost six years after the first finding of the round goby Neogobius melanostomus (Gobiidae) in the Netherlands, several specimens of this invasive Ponto-Caspian benthic fish were also recorded in the Belgian part of the River Scheldt and in the Albert Canal. This is the first record of the round goby in Belgium.
Article
Full-text available
The stocks of the European eel Anguilla anguilla are in decline and there is an increasing awareness that poor health status due to contaminants and/or diseases might be a key element in this decline and might be a hindrance to recovery. Many countries have started compiling data on the health status of eels in their water bodies. Objectives for th...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Report in Dutch! Publisher: Flemish Environmental Agency, Mechelen, p. 94, 2010. Provides an update on the distribution of heavy metals in Flanders.
Article
Between 2000 and 2007 pooled muscle tissue samples of the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) from 48 sites in Flanders (Belgium) were analysed for 30 polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners. There was a large variation between individual sites (range 11–7752 ng/g wet weight (ww) for the sum of the ICES 7 PCBs), eels from the River Meuse basin (mean...
Article
Pooled yellow eel (Anguilla anguilla L.) samples, consisting of 3-10 eels, from 50 locations collected in the period 2000-2006 were used to assess the pollution with PBDEs and HBCDs in Flemish waters (Belgium). Results from this monitoring network are presented and the spatial aspect throughout Flanders is included, linking POP levels to the indust...
Article
Full-text available
The spatial variation in the fish communities of four small Belgian rivers with variable habitat diversity was investigated by electric fishing to define the minimum sampling distance required for optimal fish stock assessment and determination of the Index of Biotic Integrity. This study shows that the standardised sampling distance of 100m was no...
Article
In the present study the impact of environmental metal contamination in gibel carp (Carassius auratus gibelio) was investigated coupling disturbances in subcellular metal distribution to effect biomarkers. Gibel carp were caught at six different sampling sites in Flanders (Belgium), characterized by different degrees in environmental metal contamin...
Article
Full-text available
European eel (Anguilla anguilla (L.)) stocks are in decline in most of their geographical distribution and their status is considered below safe biological limits. Recently, there is an increasing awareness that spawner quality might be an essential element in the decline of the species since pollution by bioaccumulating chemical substances may hav...
Article
Abstract –  Since the 1980s, the European eel Anguilla anguilla stock is in steep decline. Lipid reserves are essential to cover energetic requirements for silver eel migration and reproduction. Two large and independent data sets from Belgium and The Netherlands show an average one-third decrease in fat contents of yellow eels over the past 15 yea...
Article
Full-text available
Het is vijf voor twaalf voor de paling. Europa reageerde door de soort op de CITESen de Rode Lijst te zetten en de handel strikter te controleren. Europese lidstaten dienden per 1 januari 2009 hun palingbeheerplannen klaar te hebben. Zo hoopt Brussel de naar zee trekkende paling maximaal te beschermen en alsnog de stock aan paaidieren te herstellen...
Article
Full-text available
Belpaire, C., Goemans, G., Geeraerts, C., Quataert, P., and Parmentier, K. 2008. Pollution fingerprints in eels as models for the chemical status of rivers. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 1483–1491. The 2006 EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) proposed the monitoring of a selection of priority substances in the aquatic phase, including lipoph...
Article
The effect of metal exposure on the accumulation and cytosolic speciation of metals in livers of wild populations of European eel with special emphasis on metallothioneins (MT) was studied. Four sampling sites in Flanders showing different degrees of heavy metal contamination were selected for this purpose. An on-line isotope dilution method in com...
Article
In Flanders, the northern region of Belgium, European yellow eel muscle tissue was used as an indicator of environmental and potential human dietary exposure by hazardous chemicals of surface waters and sediments. Between 1994 and 2005, over 2800 eel captured at 365 stations were analysed for PCBs, pesticides and heavy metals. Contamination of eel...
Article
Levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were measured in several fish species originating from the river Scheldt (Belgium). Five sampling locations were chosen in a highly industrialized area along the river, while two ponds in the vicinity of the river served as refere...
Article
Full-text available
Concentrations of the sum of the seven indicator PCBs (Sigma7 iPCBs) measured in non-commercial European eel (Anguilla anguilla L.) in Flanders are high: in 80% of all sampled localities, the Belgian PCB standard for fish was exceeded. The objective of this study was to assess the intake of the Sigma7 iPCBs through consumption of eel by recreationa...
Article
Full-text available
Fourteen non-indigenous fish species have been successfully introduced to the wild within the territory of Flanders; nine are considered naturalized. Most of the introductions occurred prior to 1950, with six species introduced since then. This paper reviews the available, hitherto scattered, information (including ‘grey literature’) on these 14 no...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Report in Dutch! Publisher: Flemish Environmental Agency, Mechelen, p. 116, 2007. Provides an update on the distribution of heavy metals in Flanders.