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- Holger Kühnhold
Holger Kühnhold
Report of GLOMAR PhD student Holger Kühnhold about his research stay at the Instituto Politecnico de Leiria, Peniche, Portugal from 15 June – 8 September and 21 September - 9 October 2015
I am PhD-student at the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT). In my Project I am investigating the effect of thermal stress on different sea cucumber species. Sea cucumbers play a key role in marine ecosystems, are a high priced delicacy and prolific source of bioactive substances. Despite their ecological and commercial relevance, the biology of this species is by far not fully understood. With my thesis I strive to add knowledge regarding the following questions: 1) How will sea cucumbers be impacted by global environmental change? And 2) How to set up sustainable aquaculture practices for these fascinating organisms?
The species Holothuria forskali is considered as promising aquaculture candidate in Europe, therefore I decided to use this species as a first model organism. In order to conduct field experiments with this species, I initiated a cooperation with the Instituto Politecnico de Leiria (IPL), in Peniche, Portugal. Fortunately, Prof. Marco Lemos, the head of the Marine and Environmental Science Center (MARE), was very interested in my work and invited me to conduct some of my experiments in his laboratories. Thanks to the generous funding from GLOMAR I was able to accept his invitation, and had the chance to conduct experiments at MARE/IPL during a three months research stay.
The Portuguese National Science Foundation classified MARE/IPL as excellent research and development center in the fields of marine biotechnology, marine biology and sustainability and seafood. The Institute is located directly at the Atlantic Ocean and provides approximately 2000 m2 of high standard, fully equipped biology, chemistry and aquaculture laboratories, which provided optimal conditions for my experiments. During my stay I was able to implement two rounds of temperature manipulation experiments and managed to complete all planned physiological and biochemical analyses on site. Moreover, I conducted a SCUBA dive mission, to achieve an ecological survey for Holothuria forskali, around the Peniche peninsula and the Berlengas archipelago.
By now my self-initiated partnership with MARE/IPL turned into a very lively collaboration. Joint publications are under way, and already two ZMT master students conducted their thesis projects under the co-supervision of Prof. Marco Lemos. I will definitely come back here to conduct more experiments, either within my PhD project or afterwards as a Postdoc.
The species Holothuria forskali is considered as promising aquaculture candidate in Europe, therefore I decided to use this species as a first model organism. In order to conduct field experiments with this species, I initiated a cooperation with the Instituto Politecnico de Leiria (IPL), in Peniche, Portugal. Fortunately, Prof. Marco Lemos, the head of the Marine and Environmental Science Center (MARE), was very interested in my work and invited me to conduct some of my experiments in his laboratories. Thanks to the generous funding from GLOMAR I was able to accept his invitation, and had the chance to conduct experiments at MARE/IPL during a three months research stay.
The Portuguese National Science Foundation classified MARE/IPL as excellent research and development center in the fields of marine biotechnology, marine biology and sustainability and seafood. The Institute is located directly at the Atlantic Ocean and provides approximately 2000 m2 of high standard, fully equipped biology, chemistry and aquaculture laboratories, which provided optimal conditions for my experiments. During my stay I was able to implement two rounds of temperature manipulation experiments and managed to complete all planned physiological and biochemical analyses on site. Moreover, I conducted a SCUBA dive mission, to achieve an ecological survey for Holothuria forskali, around the Peniche peninsula and the Berlengas archipelago.
By now my self-initiated partnership with MARE/IPL turned into a very lively collaboration. Joint publications are under way, and already two ZMT master students conducted their thesis projects under the co-supervision of Prof. Marco Lemos. I will definitely come back here to conduct more experiments, either within my PhD project or afterwards as a Postdoc.
