Archipelagos Intern Experience

An insight into conservation at Archipelagos

On Lipsi Island, where the Aegean Marine Life Sanctuary will be located, the renewable energy team is aiming to create a research base and veterinary clinic that may fully function using renewable energy sources. With the average monthly sunshine on Lipsi reaching approximately 400 hours, and winter sunshine hours still above 100, solar panels are
This month Archipelagos’ media team, in cooperation with Microplastics research team, worked on posters and leaflets as a part of an awareness raising campaign in regards to “Why we are moving away from Plastic”. The main goal is to enlighten the public on how small plastic particles can leach from plastic materials that we all use daily
At the beginning of November, a sea turtle stranding (Caretta caretta) on Psili Ammos beach allowed the start of a new study: micro-plastic research in stomach and intestinal contents. The sea turtle was necropsied and the gastrointestinal tract was removed and frozen for later lab work. Over the next few weeks, a number of papers
The aim of the project is to complete habitat modelling of common dolphins, Delphinus delphis, in the Aegean Sea by using different dynamic models.  Populations of marine mammals found in Mediterranean Sea are genetically distinct from their North Atlantic relatives, which is why the studies revealing their habitats and biology are so important. The Aegean

Posidonia oceanica Mapping

Posidonia oceanica is an aquatic flowering plant endemic to the Mediterranean, instrumental in providing habitats and nursery grounds to a diverse array of species in the area. Although the seagrass is imperative to ecosystem health, conservation efforts have not mirrored this: Posidonia oceanica’s status is only listed as “least concern” in the IUCN Red List
Jackal diet preference survey Jackals are opportunistic feeders, meaning that they will eat anything available at the moment, ranging from grapes and carobs to rodents and birds or even animal carcasses. The aim of this survey is to investigate the preference of seasonal and easy to find food like carob or olives with not so
Studying Surface Water for Plankton & Microplastics In this project we collect sea surface water in the eastern Aegean Sea to find trends between the amount of plankton and microplastics and establish if a correlation exists. We hypothesise that greater quantities of plastics leads to fewer plankton in the neustonic layer leading to a greater
The aim of this project is to develop a species distribution model (SDM) for common dolphins which takes into account dynamic environmental factors such as sea surface temperature, salinity and chlorophyll. SDMs take occurrence or abundance data about certain species and extrapolate this data in space and time using a statistical model. In the case of
Desalination stills Desalination stills are using the suns radiant energy to evaporate water. The evaporated water is then condensed again on a cool inside surface, where it drips down and is collected. Archipelagos’ prototype is a two slope basin solar still with a 20° horizontal angle. The aim of the desalination process in our base
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