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IMBRSea

The International Master in Marine Biological Resources (IMBRSea), is a joint Master programme organ

14/08/2026

🌊 We’re entering the final stretch of this year’s IMBRSea Joint Summer Schools!

Our second group of highly motivated IMBRSea students has been working hard on their projects at Tjärnö Marine Laboratory, and they’re now ready to share what they’ve discovered. 🔬

Today, students will present their final results and movie documentaries in the Auditorium of Tjärnö Marine Laboratory.

Their projects explore an exciting mix of marine topics, including:
🌊 Microplastic levels in wild and store-bought mussels
🦪 Marine heatwaves and the performance of native and invasive oysters
🌊 Hydrodynamic exposure and benthic communities in fjords
🔬 Benthic Foraminifera diversity, morphology and environmental impacts
🐚 Eutrophication effects on blue mussels and their epibionts
🌿 Algal communities along a river-to-fjord gradient

With the summer schools almost coming to an end, we’re looking forward to seeing how all their hard work comes together. 🎓🌊

Stay tuned for their final research posts coming up soon!

IMBRSea Universiteit Gent Faculty of Sciences Ghent University Marine Biology Tjärnö marina laboratorium, Göteborgs universitet Göteborgs universitet

tjärnömarinelaboratory erasmusmundus

31/07/2026

The IMBRSea Summer School Odyssey reaches its end! 🧜‍♀️🌊

Between dodging Laestrygonians (absent eelgrass) and Cyclopes (coding bugs), Team M.E.R.M.A.I.D. pivoted a lot to reach Ithaca.

Our final question: Can low-cost drone RGB imagery and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) map shallow benthic substrates? 🚁🗺️

Our LDA had quite lot to say:
🎯 84.4% overall accuracy of recognising benthic substrates
🏖️ Sand predicted at 89.9% certainty
🟤 Brown algae at 86.0% certainty
🌿 Green algae at 74.5% certainty
🔴🟢 Red and green channels drove the separation.

The plot twist? Despite historical government records, we found zero Zostera marina in our transects—highlighting the urgent need for transparent, scalable coastal monitoring.

Through projects like this one, accessible statistical tools can nowadays empower local managers to track ecosystem shifts on a budget.

Huge thanks to our supervisor Laura-Marie Dehne and Tjärnö Marine Lab! Team M.E.R.M.A.I.D. will see you on the waves!

gu

31/07/2026

Group 6 🔥Too Hot to Handle🔥 final update!!

We have completed our experiment with the common periwinkle Littorina littorea. Lets take a look at what we found 👀

Updates:
🌡️ Our main result was that weight and temperature influence snail behavior. So what does this mean?

🐌 Smaller snails tend to be more active at lower temperatures
🐌 Larger snails tend to climb the walls at higher temperatures
🐌 All snails have lower activity levels at higher temperatures
🐌 Larger snails may take longer to react to the heat than smaller snails
🐌 Smaller snails are more likely to experience heat shock at higher temperatures

❓Why is this important ❓
These results can provide insight into the possible reactions snails will have to warming global water temperatures. Heat waves may leave smaller snails more vulnerable to temperature shock, but larger snails may take longer to react. Therefore, snail populations may be threatened in the future directly by heat stress or indirectly by predation from heat stunning.
The good news? The temperature extreme we exposed our snails to is greater than the predicted water temperatures for the next 75 years.

Additionally, we found:
The distance the snail traveled in the thermal gradient did not differ from the distance the snails traveled in the control group.
Snail body weight was correlated with snail shell length

.gu

31/07/2026

The Acquanomists Drop the Results! ⚖️🌿

As promised, the wait is over! After two weeks of hard work and diving deep into the minds of the local community, we are thrilled to share the final conclusions of our study on the social acceptance of kelp farming in Tjärnö Bay, Sweden!

After countless hours gathering your opinions through our questionnaires, here’s the scoop:

🌟 We got good neeeeews, the majority of participants are fully on board!

🤝 The perceived socio-economic and ecosystem benefits are clear winners. However, there are some worries about the proximity to marine protected areas, potential visual and environmental impacts, and boat traffic.

⚖️ What is our verdict? We are happy to know that the benefits are generally seen as outweighing the concerns, meaning a hypothetical kelp farm has a green light!

🚦Buuuuut, there is a catch, because people strongly prefer smaller farms located further from the shore.

Our Final Takeaway: A small, experimental farm further from the coast seems to be the sweet spot! Not only would it produce a valuable new resource and boost the local economy, but it could also serve as a fantastic educational hub to raise awareness about kelp aquaculture! 🌊

Thank you to everyone who participated! Let's keep the conversation going. 👇

gu

31/07/2026

🦪🌊 Diving into how wave exposure shapes oyster reefs in Tjärnö Bay, Sweden
Swipe through to see our results:

1️⃣Oyster density and shell size showed a slight tendency to increase in sheltered beds, though the differences weren't statistically significant.

2️⃣ Bigger oysters, denser beds — and this link was even stronger in sheltered waters than in wave-exposed ones! 📈

3️⃣ Exposed or sheltered, the fauna living among the oysters looks pretty similar, wave exposure alone doesn't seem to make a big difference in who lives there 🦀🐚

4️⃣ Take-home message:
It's not just the waves reef structure and microhabitats may matter more than exposure alone. More research is needed to fully understand these patterns! 🔬

Wave exposure may affect first the oyster bed development rather than an immediately effect on the associated epifauna structure.

Grateful for the chance to explore these questions hands-on in the field. Thanks to everyone who made this possible! 🙌
ENFIMOR TEAM 😊

gu

31/07/2026

🕵️‍♀️🦪 CLASSIFIED FILE: THE MISSING FILTRATION PATTERN 🔍🚔

Case ID: IMBRSea
Location: Tjärnö
Classification: Top Secret

The mission seemed simple.

Follow the current.
Track the particles.
Find the filter feeders.

Our prime hypothesis predicted a clear trail: high concentrations upstream, particle removal over the bivalve bed, and lower concentrations downstream.

💥 But the evidence told a different story. 💥

At several sites, suspended organic and inorganic particles increased downstream. At Site 3, chlorophyll-a increased significantly as well. One site showed the expected dip above the bed—but the pattern was not statistically significant. 💔

Four sites. Four different testimonies.

The suspects:

🌊 Changing water parcels
🌬️ Wind and water movement
🪨 Sediment resuspension
📍 Local depth and site conditions

Each had a motive.
Each had an opportunity.
None could be convicted alone.

Final intelligence report:
The expected filtration pattern was not simply erased. It was likely hidden beneath several interacting environmental processes.

🔒 CASE CLOSED?

Yes—’cause summer school is over. Will miss you guys!(｡･ω･｡)ﾉ

31/07/2026

🚨ANOMALY DETECTED🚨
Five researchers. Conflicting clues. An unexpected pattern.
What happened to the data?

There is only one truth! 🔍👣

facultyofscience

.gu

31/07/2026

Mission Crab: Complete!!!

Here's what our Crabsolutly team got up to;
🦀 Collected crabs from two different locations
🧪 Ran blood, faecal, and water analyses
🔬 Found a whole microscopic world with dinoflagellates, diatoms, protozoa, ciliates, nematodes, yeast-like structures and plenty of other tiny organisms.

We didn’t find the parasites we were expecting... BUT we found something we definitely didn't expect: tiny bivalves hiding inside the reproductive system of one crab! 👀

Are these tiny ones there just by chance? Or could they actually benefit from the crab enough to become parasites? That's a question for future research!

We have also completed all our behavioural experiments (standing-up, escape and foraging tests). Surprisingly, we didn’t observe any clear behavioural differences between our groups. Sometimes, the absence of a significant result is, in fact, an important scientific finding!! It tells us exactly what we need to look at next.

Science isn’t always about proving your hypothesis. Sometimes it's about discovering something completely unexpected...or occasionally chasing after escaped crabs. 🦀💨

Thank you, Tjärnö Marine Station, for an unforgettable adventure full of microscopes, teamwork and countless crabs. See you at the next project!!

gu

31/07/2026

Hello friendly waves! 🌊

We’ve been exploring how wave exposure, temperature, and the health of Zostera marina are connected. After countless field adventures, data analyses, and plenty of teamwork, Team 1 has some exciting news to share!

❓ Can wave exposure provide a thermal refuge for Zostera marina in a warming ocean?

Our main findings suggest that it can:

🌊 Wave-driven mixing provided localized cooling during warm temperature anomalies.

🌱 Meadows at moderately to highly exposed sites (such as Vattenholmen and Flatskär) showed significantly greater cover, biomass, and longest leaf length than sheltered sites, indicating enhanced meadow performance under moderate wave exposure.

🪸 Epiphyte coverage was highest at exposed sites, likely because wave-driven leaf movement enhances nutrient diffusion.

☀️ Photosynthetic efficiency varied among sites, but did not show a clear linear relationship with wave exposure.

Overall, our results show that wave exposure (up to 163.8 W m⁻¹) can buffer thermal stress in Zostera marina meadows by lowering local water temperatures and promoting greater meadow density, biomass, and leaf development.

In other words, hydrodynamically active areas may act as thermal refugia for seagrass under climate warming.

Do you have questions about our study? We'd love to answer! Send a message to 😊

gu

29/07/2026

Team M.E.R.M.A.I.D. here, preparing for lift off. 🛸

When coordinating land, sea, AND air operations, having a solid plan makes handling complications much easier.

After nailing down our method to compare RGB values from drone and underwater footage, we choreographed our sampling process and captured some great data above and below the surface.

But as always, research rarely goes exactly as planned. We uncovered a few surprises during our field run, so we’re currently analyzing our discoveries and plotting our next steps. Stay tuned…

.gu

seagrass conservation marinebiology facultyofscience

Adres

International MSc In Marine Biological Resources Ghent University Marine Biology Research Group Krijgslaan 281/S 8
Ghent
9000

Openingstijden

Maandag	09:00 - 17:00
Dinsdag	09:00 - 17:00
Woensdag	09:00 - 17:00
Donderdag	09:00 - 17:00
Vrijdag	09:00 - 17:00

Website

http://www.imbrsea.eu/

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