The sun stands smooth above taking off to the Bornholm Basin. Everybody with a smiley face and ready to start the great adventure. This “Praktikum auf See” is a training course for Master students of biological oceanography at GEOMAR in Kiel.

While learning different sampling methods, may these be benthic or pelagic, we will investigate the distribution of flora and fauna along the Baltic Sea – Kattegat – Skagerrak salinity gradient. We investigate horizontal and vertical distribution of jellyfish and its prey (mesozooplankton) as well as the distribution, composition and diversity of benthic communities.

Nine students will be trained by the three trainers: Dr. Christian Pansch, benthos ecologist, who will be responsible for benthos sampling and identification; Dr. Marco Scotti who will take care of compiling data and data analysis in R and I, who will be responsible for zooplankton and jellyfish identification.

Bloggers: Christian, Marco and Jamileh