Lead Scientists
Dr Alexandra Kraberg and Dr Ana Macario

 The Institute

The Alfred Wegener Institute is Germany's leading institute for polar and marine research. The Institute was established as a public foundation in 1980. The Foundation Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and marine Research includes the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven the Potsdam Research Unit (1992), the Biologische Anstalt Helgoland and the Wadden Sea Station Sylt. Polar and Marine research are central themes of global system and environmental Science. It co-ordinates Polar research in Germany and provides both the necessary equipment and the essential logistic back up for polar expeditions

Role in PLANKTON*NET

AWI is the Project co-ordinator. IT tasks e.g. achieving interoperability between PLANKTON*NET nodes will be carried out predominantly at the AWI but in close co-operation with all other partners. The AWI computer center will also co-ordinate the linkage of PLANKTON*NET to exisitng AWI resources such as PANGAEA. The 2. co-ordination task will be that of populating PLANKTON*NET with image material provided by partners and external collaborators.

Background

PLANKTON*NET@AWI was the first PLANKTON*NET node and was established in February 2004. The rationale for establishing the AWI PLANKTON*NET node was twofold: 1. to permanently archive the substantial information recorded in the course of the Helgoland Roads long-term monitoring series and to create a teaching and self study resource for the numerous courses in phytoplankton ecology visiting the Biological station Helgoland every year and also to the AWI school projects.

Data

• Image material from the North Sea around the islands of Helgoland and Sylt
• Images from cultures of diatoms and dinoflagellates

In addition the AWI is assisting two external teams, the Max-Planck Institute for Limnology and the University of Madeira) to prepare their collections for online publication in PLANKTON*NET. In the case of the the data from the Max-Planck Institute this also included considerable assistance with image digitizing and processing as well as with data input.