Registration form (button on top right) will open July 1 - 09:30 CET

Morning workshops

Classification of MPAs  - Dr. Barbara Horta e Costa

Barbara Horta e Costa (BHC) is a marine ecologist working at CCMAR/University of Algarve. BHC is particularly dedicated to conservation and management. She studies Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) ecological and social effectiveness and performance, as well as conditions for MPA success. This brief workshop will start with a presentation of the MPA Guide, recently published in Science (Grorud-Colvert et al. 2021), and in which BHC collaborated. Then we will select some MPAs and each participant will try to follow the guidelines to classify MPAs according to the Protection Level and Stage of Establishment of the MPA Guide.

Marine litter  - Eva García

Marine litter is one of the biggest threats to oceans and coasts today. Cleaning the seas is a challenge for scientists and the society due to the enormous quantity of debris and microplastics. Moreover, to stop littering we need a profound change of current consumption and production habits towards R-imperatives. Although socially and technically difficult, these challenges may represent an opportunity for the society, including circular economy and a conscious, sustainable way of life. In this workshop we will:  learn about marine litter and microplastics (types, sources, risks); analyse and critically discuss current initiatives of transforming marine litter into products with an added value; discuss necessary changes in consumption and production behaviour; team-work hands-on with real samples of litter objects and microplastics: sorting, analysing, looking for a second life for them.  

Telemetry  - David Abecasis

During this workshop we will go over the key technologies utilised in aquatic animal biotelemetry (e.g., satellite telemetry, radio telemetry and acoustic telemetry). We will look at how these distinct approaches are used and when to employ each one, considering the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Arduino for marine sciences  - Tim tkint

This hands-on training course that will introduce marine scientists to the open-source technology platform Arduino. Arduino is an easy-to-use hardware and software platform with endless possibilities on reading data captured with sensors and controlling connected instruments. In this course trainees will via hands-on marine applications learn to implement this technology and get an understanding of the possibilities of the platform and the  potential use in research.

BlueTech   - Deborah Power

round table/discussion

Seabirds as a monitoring tool for marine-plastic litter  - Heidi Acampora

Information session

How a citizen science algae project can help discover marine bioactive compounds as novel medicines and how do we test their therapeutic potential? - Dina Simes

This workshop consists of 2 parts:

Part 1 > Seaweeds on the Beach- A citizen science project (30 min) Dina Simes (presenting author),  Rui Santos, Rita Abecasis, Carla Viegas, Paula Ventura,

Part 2 > Marine bioactive compounds as novel medicines to treat chronic inflammation related diseases. (40 min) Dina Simes (presenting author), Carla Viegas, Bárbara Vieira, Inês Baía

Afternoon workshops

Learning Data Management and Workflow Analyses: a hackathon from the EMBRC’s EMO BON (marine metagenomics) project  - Ioulia Santi / Cymon Cox

The European Marine Omics Biodiversity Observation Network (EMO BON) is the flagship marine metagenomics project of the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC). Sampling bimonthly at 16 sites throughout Europe, EMO BON aims to provide standardised marine metagenomics data, and data products, for marine scientists to use freely. In this Hackathon, EMBRC scientists will describe how EMO BON is driven by Open Science principles and the use of FAIR data standards, and demonstrate how data is managed and analysed within the project. The use of standardised descriptions of data provenance and other metadata (data describing the data) will be emphasised through the use of vocabularies and ontologies and their importance for interoperability with other data sources and databases. The analytical workflows used by EMO BON will be introduced and the basic concepts of how to write workflows (analysis pipelines) and how to execute them in a containerised environment will be described. Participants will construct a simple workflow written in the Common Workflow Language for genomics data analysis, package it into a “run anywhere” Docker container, and execute it on a High-Performance Computing cluster. This hackathon is intended to emphasise the broad concepts of data management and bioinformatic analyses of genomic data.

eDNA  - Alba Ardura

eDNA refers to DNA that can be extracted from environmental samples, such as water, soil, or faeces. This approach has many advantages over traditional surveying methods: higher chance of detecting a species; cost efficiency and accuracy; no disturbance to vulnerable species. In this workshop we will: learn about the main uses of eDNA in marine conservation, analyzing the pros and cons compared to traditional study methods; team-work hands-on with real samples from different sources (marine and freshwater) to detect eDNA, using a simple nucleic acid staining methodology. 

A career in Marine Science  - Tim Deprez

Round table

Professional prospects in marine sciences  - Laurence Mejanelle/Damien Cardinal

In this workshop we will discuss the professionnal project of the attendees. Do they have an idea of a precise job? What are the activities and responsabilities corresponding to this job? Where to find job offers? How to answer to them?

Arduino for marine sciences  - Tim tkint

This hands-on training course that will introduce marine scientists to the open-source technology platform Arduino. Arduino is an easy-to-use hardware and software platform with endless possibilities on reading data captured with sensors and controlling connected instruments. In this course trainees will via hands-on marine applications learn to implement this technology and get an understanding of the possibilities of the platform and the  potential use in research.

Scientific drawing  - Jorge Palma

Ethics in Marine Science  - Katie O'Dwyer

Ecosystem restoration  - Sylvia Bianchelli