Pierre Thiriet

Background

About Pierre Thiriet

I am a coastal fish ecologist and professional CCR Hypoxic Trimix Diver, working at the interface between ecological research and environmental management. I specialize in long term monitoring and research on demersal fish assemblages associated with coastal 3D structured benthic habitats (rocky reefs, kelp forests, seagrass meadows, artificial reefs, offshore wind farms, etc) in both Mediterranean and NE Atlantic coasts. After 8 years working on fundamental and applied research on rocky reef fish, my work was refocused towards more policy-oriented applied research and scientific policy advice, when I took up a permanent position at the joint Research and Expertise Center ‘PatriNat’ (hosted in Dinard Marine Biological Station, Brittany, France) For 6 years at ‘PatriNat’, I have coordinated or been directly involved in the french national-scale development of methods and strategies for the long term monitoring of coastal fish assemblages, on both Mediterranean and Atlantic French coasts, in the context of MSFD, OSPAR, MPAs and Offshore Wind Farms. To achieve a more complete picture of the responses of fish assemblages to natural and anthropogenic stressors,I works on combining multiple complementary observational research methods: fish Underwater Visual Census (UVC) protocols (for scientists and citizens), sea floor SfM photogrammetry, Baited Remote Underwater Stereo Video, multi-beam and split-beam echosounders, and environmental DNA metabarcoding. In this context, I routinely carry out UVC surveys. I also use UVC to ground-truth blind methods such as eDNA and echosounding.