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Lobster sampling takes place on commercial fishing boats, and so must be performed quickly and without interruption to those working on the boat. The DORIS app allows a photograph (for sizing and sexing), time, date, geographical co-ordinates, and unique sampling ID code to be stored for each individual lobster while in the field. Mobile connectivity is not required for the app to function – once the device is brought back into a region with connectivity the data is uploaded to an online database, and can be viewed on a map.

The data will be used for understanding how lobster populations are structured around our coastline, and for assessing whether stock enhancement can play a useful role for improving the sustainability of exploited lobster populations.

DORIS is the result of a collaboration between the University of Helsinki, University of Exeter, the National Lobster Hatchery (registered charity no. 1105434), and FoAM (Brussels). The development was performed by Dave Griffiths (FoAM) in consultation with Dr. Amber Teacher (University of Helsinki/University of Exeter), Dr. David Hodgson (University of Exeter) and Charlie Ellis (University of Exeter/National Lobster Hatchery). This project was funded by the European Social Fund, the University of Helsinki, the Academy of Finland (Grant no. 138043), and The Fishmongers' Company.

The source code for DORIS is available under open source GPL licence and can be found on GitHub.