At the close of the "Assises Nationales des Données de la Recherche 2024", which took place on November 26 and 27 at the Mucem in Marseille, the Ichthyop software (https://ichthyop.org), represented by Nicolas Barrier (IRD, MARBEC) and Philippe Verley (IRD, AMAP) for the developers and Céline Barrier (University of Corse) for the users, received the “Prix science ouverte du logiciel libre de la recherche 2024” in the ‘Scientific and Technical’ category. The jury, chaired by Pierre Boulet (University of Lille), was particularly impressed by Ichthyop's use outside its original community.
Initially developed to study the dynamics of fish eggs and larvae for applications in the South, and in South Africa in particular, Ichthyop is now widely used for more directly applied problems, such as the study of virus dissemination from aquaculture farms, the tracking and collection of marine debris and pollutants, and even the reconstruction of the drift of the remains of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane.
This award, which recognizes projects and research teams working to develop and disseminate open source software, rewards the efforts of the scientific and technical contributors to the Ichthyop software, whether students, PhDs, post-docs, researchers or engineers. Many thanks to Christian Mullon, Christophe Lett (IRD, MARBEC), Philippe Verley and
Nicolas Barrier, who have been the main contributors so far, as well as to the many Ichthyop users around the world who enrich scientific knowledge through their work. A number of doctoral students from the South, trained in Ichthyop, continue to use the software for their research in their respective countries, in South Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, Chile and Brazil.
Ichthyop is a software program for simulating the dispersion of organisms by ocean currents, which can also be applied to other environmental issues such as the study of plastic drift in the ocean.
Launched in 2007, Ichthyop helps to better understand the ecology of commercial species with high economic stakes, and to implement marine conservation policies by studying the connectivity between marine protected areas, as well as to study the drift of non-living entities such as pollutants
and marine debris.
