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Department of Evolutionary and Experimental Biology

information for recruitment and correct completing of questionnaires

Participation in this project is not reserved only for scuba divers (of any school or license), but to all who love the sea. All that is required to participate is a good sense of observation, curiosity and a special survey questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of two main sections: the first, to be kept, shows the pictures of the organisms to be identified during the dive, the second, for recording the sightings, to be filled in and sent to the University in Bologna for elaboration.

Observing the reference photos before and after the dive makes it easier to recognize the organisms. If a sighted species is not shown on the questionnaire, it should be recorded in the "others..." box, according to the group it belongs to (vegetable, sponges, octocorals, hexacorals, sedentary worms, gastropods, bivalves, cephalopods, decapods etc.).

If you have not sighted a particular organism just leave the space blank.

If you are not familiar with the marine environment, for a more correct recording, it is useful to refer to the underwater guides or someone who already knows the biogeografic characteristic of the dive site.

One questionnaire always corresponds to only one dive.

There is no limit to the number of questionnaires that can be completed for a particular dive site.

Although there are different versions of the questionnaire depending on the year it was printed, you can always use the original survey questionnaire. Even a photocopy of the questionnaire is useful, or a download from the site, in that case, remember to stick together the two sides or copy both sides; to be able to analyze the recorded data it is necessary to have reliable information.

We start the statistical data elaboration when a minimum of 10 correctly recorded questionnaires
come from the same dive site.

For a correct questionnaire completing it is necessary to pay careful attention to all the fields.
In particular, the following information are fundamental:

Note: The classification to win the prizes not only depends on the number of questionnaires, but also the quality of recording the data. Each blank space on the questionnaire heading notably reduces its quality.

PLEASE, SEND YOUR QUESTIONNAIRES TO:

MARINE SCIENCE GROUP

Department of Evolutionary and Experimental Biology

Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna

Via F. Selmi, 3 40126 Bologna – Italy

Questionnaires can be sent all year round, individually or in small packs, so as not to slow down the work of inputting and elaborating the data.

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by Marine Science Group staff

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