Department Head

Department: Benthos (incl. Laboratory)

Most of the organisms present in the sea have at least one stage of their life cycle which takes place in the benthos. This demonstrates the significance of benthic communities for marine ecosystems as well as their significance in the food chain. Most of the ground-dwelling animals and plants act as bio-engineers and serve as a habitat for other organisms, such as many fish species.

The main areas of research of the Benthic Organisms & Habitats Department are census taking, monitoring, and description and assessment of marine and limnic benthos. The species communities and their habitats are investigated by means of underwater video recording, research diving and ship-based sampling.

The knowledge of species and the possibility of making comparisons with more then 12,000 archived specimens from IfAÖ's own benthic collection, as well as time series data of the institute's own benthos database (> 7,700 stations with > 33,0000 hauls from the North and Baltic Seas), allows us to precisely identify the benthic co  unities (animals and plants) and to describe the diversity and distribution of species. The results find their way into expert reports that provide assessments of environmental impacts, and into scientific articles and publications.