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19.10.2009 Eu­ro­pean deep-sea re­se­arch: Cli­ma­te chan­ges and deep-sea eco­sys­tems

Cli­ma­te chan­ges and deep-sea eco­sys­tems in the Eas­tern Me­di­ter­ra­ne­an Sea
Sci­en­tists of the Max Planck In­sti­tu­te for Ma­ri­ne Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy in Bre­men, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg and their Eu­ro­pean col­le­gues in­ves­ti­ga­te the deep-sea en­vi­ron­ment in the Eas­tern Me­di­ter­ra­ne­an Sea.
 
European deep-sea research: Climate changes and deep-sea ecosystems in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Sci­en­tists of the Max Planck In­sti­tu­te for Ma­ri­ne Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy in Bre­men, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg and their Eu­ro­pean col­le­agues in­ves­ti­ga­te the deep-sea en­vi­ron­ment in the Eas­tern Me­di­ter­ra­ne­an Sea. In the frame­work of their ex­pe­di­ti­on, the Ger­man re­se­arch ves­sel Ma­ria S. Me­ri­an vi­sits for the first time the port of Cy­prus on 22 Oc­to­ber 2009. The Ma­ria S. Me­ri­an is one of the most mo­dern mul­ti­di­sci­pli­na­ry ves­sels of the Eu­ro­pean re­se­arch fleet. The chief sci­en­tists Dag­mar Hain­bu­cher (Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg) and Ant­je Boe­ti­us (Max Planck In­sti­tu­te Bre­men) will in­vi­te col­le­agues and aut­ho­ri­ties from Cy­prus to a re­cep­ti­on on board the ME­RI­AN, to in­form about the ob­jec­tives of the ex­pe­di­ti­on. The New Le­me­sos Port of Cy­prus will be the main berth of RV ME­RI­AN for a num­ber of sub­se­quent ME­RI­AN crui­ses from Oc­to­ber 2009 to May 2010.

For the sci­en­ti­fic web­log click here
Maria S. Merian
The modern German research vessel Maria S. Merian, named after the German scientist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian. (source: N. Verch, University of Hamburg)
The main re­se­arch ob­jec­tive of the Ma­ria S. Me­ri­an ex­pe­di­ti­on MS­M13 led by Hain­bu­cher and Boe­ti­us is to un­der­stand the dy­na­mics of the Eas­tern Me­di­ter­ra­ne­an Deep Sea, from cli­ma­te chan­ge ef­fects on deep-wa­ter for­ma­ti­on to the dis­tri­bu­ti­on of enig­ma­tic deep-sea eco­sys­tems.

Pre­vious hy­dro­gra­phic re­se­arch in the Eas­tern Me­di­ter­ra­ne­an has re­cor­ded evi­dence for dra­ma­tic chan­ges in deep-wa­ter for­ma­ti­ons. In the late 80’s, much war­mer and sal­tier wa­ter from the Ae­ge­an Sea has re­pla­ced the cold and fresh wa­ter ori­gi­na­ting from the Adria­tic Sea. Ex­pe­di­ti­ons in re­cent ye­ars in­di­ca­te that the pro­cess of deep-wa­ter for­ma­ti­on might now re­ver­se again. How the dy­na­mics of the ther­mo­ha­li­ne cir­cu­la­ti­on will in­du­ce a cli­ma­te chan­ge and to what extent the dif­fe­rent wa­ter mas­ses cont­ri­bu­te to the deep-wa­ter for­ma­ti­on is cur­rent­ly in­ves­ti­ga­ted on board the ME­RI­AN du­ring the first and se­cond leg led by Dag­mar Hain­bu­cher. Moo­rings and floats have been de­ploy­ed at four lo­ca­ti­ons in the Adria­tic and Io­ni­an Seas collec­ting ocea­no­gra­phic data for up to two ye­ars, to pro­vi­de long term in­for­ma­ti­on about fluc­tua­ti­ons of wa­ter mass dis­tri­bu­ti­ons. Fur­ther­mo­re, the ex­pe­di­ti­on cont­ri­bu­tes to trai­ning of young sci­en­tists at sea.
Left: The unmanned autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) retrieved after its journey to the deep-sea floor. Right: The romotely operated vehicle (ROV) on its way down. (source: Gerrit Meinecke, MARUM )
The third and fourth leg of the ex­pe­di­ti­on star­ting 25 Oc­to­ber from Li­mas­sol led by Ant­je Boe­ti­us will car­ry out com­plex in-situ ex­pe­ri­ments and de­tai­led map­ping of deep-sea eco­sys­tems with the deep sub­mer­gence ve­hi­cles ROV Ques­t4000 and AUV Seal (MA­RUM, Uni­ver­si­ty Bre­men). In the sun­less eco­sys­tem of the Eas­tern Me­di­ter­ra­ne­an seaf­loor exo­tic or­ga­nisms such as gi­ant tu­be­worms, sym­bio­tic mus­sels, and co­lor­ful bac­te­ri­al mats thri­ve on re­du­ced che­mi­cal sub­stan­ces from the seaf­loor as sole en­er­gy sour­ce. Other en­er­gy-star­ved deep-sea or­ga­nisms can pro­fit from the pro­li­fic life at mud vol­ca­noes and bri­ne pools of the Eas­tern Me­di­ter­ra­ne­an Sea. The sci­en­tists hope to fill the know­ledge gap about threa­te­ned deep-sea ma­ri­ne eco­sys­tems and the in­ter­ac­tion of the­se sys­tems with the glo­bal bio­s­phe­re in the frame­work of the EU pro­ject HER­MIO­NE, which aims at pro­vi­ding sci­en­ti­fic in­for­ma­ti­on for the con­ser­va­ti­on of the deep oce­an eco­sys­tem.

Susanne Borgwardt
For further information please contact:

Dr. Man­fred Schlös­ser, Tel: 0421 2028 – 704,
mschloes@mpi-bre­men.de

Dr. Su­san­ne Borg­wardt, Tel: 0421 2028 – 704,
sborg­war@mpi-bre­men.de

Projects:
- Wi­t­hin the seventh frame­work pro­gram­me of the Eu­ro­pean Com­mi­si­on a new pro­ject en­t­it­led HER­MIO­NE (Hot­spot Eco­sys­tem Re­se­arch and Man’s Im­pact on Eu­ro­pean Seas) star­ted in spring 2009. It will fo­cus on the hu­man im­pacts on eco­sys­tems on the deep-sea and trans­la­te the sci­en­ti­fic data into na­tio­nal and in­ter­na­tio­nal po­li­cies.
- The GDRE (Eu­ro­pean sci­en­ti­fic co­or­di­na­ti­on net­works) pro­ject Di­WOOD (Di­ver­si­ty of Or­ga­nisms As­so­cia­ted to Ma­ri­ne Woods Falls) is a co­ope­ra­ti­on bet­ween the Max Planck Ge­sell­schaft (MPG) in Ger­ma­ny and the Cent­re Na­tio­nal de la Re­cher­ché Sci­en­ti­fi­que (CNRS) in Fran­ce.
- The col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve re­se­arch pro­ject CHE­ME­CO in the con­text of the Eu­ro­pean Sci­ence Foun­da­ti­on and Eu­ro­pean Col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve Re­se­arch pro­gram­me (EU­RO­CO­RES) Eu­ro­DE­EP rea­li­zes a mul­ti­di­sci­pli­na­ry stu­dy of co­lo­niza­t­i­on pro­ces­ses at se­veral sites dis­tri­bu­ted in the Eu­ro­pean wa­ters, from the Me­di­ter­ra­ne­an Sea to the At­lan­tic Oce­an and Nor­dic sea.

Participating Institutions:

AWI - Al­fred-We­ge­ner In­sti­tut für Po­lar- und Mee­res­for­schung, Bre­mer­ha­ven, Ger­ma­ny

Cà Fos­ca­ri Uni­ver­si­ty of Ve­nice (UVE), De­part­ment of En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­en­ces - Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy La­bo­ra­to­ry, Ve­nice, Ita­ly

De­part­ment of Food Sci­ence and Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy (DiSTAM), Fa­cul­ty of Agri­cul­tu­re - Uni­ver­si­ty of Mi­la­no, Ita­ly

IfM-GEO­MAR – Kiel, Ger­ma­ny

IF­RE­MER (Brest) - Cent­re If­re­mer de Brest, DRO/​Dépar­te­ment En­vi­ron­ne­ment Pro­fond, Plou­z­ané, Fran­ce

In­sti­tut für Bio­geo­che­mie und Mee­resche­mie (IFBM), Zen­trum für Ma­ri­ne und At­mo­sphä­ri­sche Wis­sen­schaf­ten - Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg, Ger­ma­ny

In­sti­tut für Mee­res­kun­de (IFM-ZMAW), Zen­trum für Ma­ri­ne und At­mo­sphä­ri­sche Wis­sen­schaf­ten - Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg, Ger­ma­ny

Is­ti­tu­to Na­zio­na­le di Ocea­no­gra­fia e di Geo­fi­si­ca Spe­ri­men­ta­le (OGS), Di­par­ti­men­to Ocea­no­gra­fia, Sgo­ni­co (TS), Ita­ly

MA­RUM - Zen­trum für ma­ri­ne Um­welt­wis­sen­schaf­ten, Uni­ver­si­ty of Bre­men, Ger­ma­ny

Max-Planck-In­sti­tut für Ma­ri­ne Mi­kro­bio­lo­gie, Bre­men, Ger­ma­ny

NIOF - Na­tio­nal In­sti­tu­te of Ocea­no­gra­phy and Fis­he­ries, Alex­an­dria, Egypt

Uni­ver­si­ty Ghent - Bio­lo­gy De­part­ment, Ghent, Bel­gi­um

Uni­ver­sité Pier­re et Ma­rie Cu­rie, Pa­ris, Fran­ce

Uni­ver­si­ty of Thes­sa­ly - Dept. of Ichthyo­lo­gy and Aqua­tic En­vi­ron­ment, Fa­cul­ty of Agri­cul­tu­ral Sci­en­ces, Nea Io­nia, Greece
logo of MSM13
The logo of the expedition of RV Maria S. Merian MSM13 using Lemesos New Port for logistics and exchange of European scientists and technologies.
HERMIONE logo
The logo of the EU’s 7th FP HERMIONE project.
ESF logo
The logo of the ESF promoting high quality science at European level.
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