Hiske Fink 2008-03-31

Report of GLOMAR PhD student Hiske Fink about her participation in the HERMES 3rd Annual Meeting in Carvoeiro, Portugal, 31 March - 4 April 2008

The 3rd Annual Meeting of the HERMES EU-project (Hotspot Ecosystems Research on the Margins of European Seas) took place during the first week of April in a Hotel in Carvoeiro (Faro/Portugal). Thanks to GLOMAR I was able to attend at this rather small meeting with about 140 participants, mostly members of the HERMES project.

I went to my first conference with a lot of expectations, because the research on cold-water corals is one major part of the HERMES project and several international specialists have been present. There were numbers of talks concerning the topic of my PhD which deals with the development of cold-water corals. I followed a lot of very interesting presentations concerning the latest news of coral research and the environment of my study area given by famous international scientists.

I myself presented a poster with the title “Records of Holocene cold-water coral growth from the Mediterranean Sea”. For the duration of the conference, all the posters were presented in front of the conference room, so that there was enough time for everybody to have a look at all the posters. Many people were interested in my data and I got a lot of positive feedback from established scientists. During the poster-session I had very fruitful discussions with other scientists and I got helpful suggestions for my current and future work.

Another big advantage of the conference was that all participants stayed in the same hotel, so that we always met each other and could have scientific discussions in a relaxed atmosphere. Therefore I could make a couple of connections to different scientists of the coral-community, as well as to other PhD students. Most important for me was the discussion with Marco Taviani from Italy. He is working on cold-water corals on a site very close to my working area, and we are now thinking about cooperation and a stay abroad for me at the Instituto Di Scienze Marine (ISMAR) in Bologna. Additionally I talked with André Freiwald, also a specialist in cold-water coral research and he invited me to give a presentation on my work and to have a discussion with his team at the Geoforschungszentrum Nordbayern. Furthermore discussions with Norbert Frank were really effective. He is a specialist in absolute age determination and probably we will also cooperate.

Overall all I can say that the conference was quite successful for me and I think that my future work will benefit therefrom. Thanks to GLOMAR for making this experience possible!