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Photosynthesis can take place in nature even at extremely low light levels. This is the result of an international study that investigated the development of Arctic microalgae at the end of the polar night. The measurements were carried out as part of the MOSAiC expedition at 88° northern latitude and revealed that even this far north, microalgae can build up biomass through photosynthesis as early as the end of March. At this time, the sun is barely above the horizon, so that it is still almost completely dark in the microalgae's habitat under the snow…

Judith Pirscher, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) visited the AWI: Together with the Directorate, she toured the research vessel Heincke. Other representatives of the AWI explained the tasks of coastal and shelf sea research on board. After a tour of the second largest ship in the AWI fleet, there was time for an exchange on current AWI research topics, digitalization and international cooperation. 

In the Arctic Archipelago Svalbard, this August roughly 20 experts from seven German universities and research centres set up their labs and instruments for the polar research project YESSS (Year-round EcoSystem Study on Svalbard). Coordinated by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), YESSS is intended to yield new insights into climate change effects. To help make that a reality, a small team of researchers – and this is the unique aspect – will also spend the long, dark seasons at AWIPEV research station in…

AWI director Antje Boetius and the director of the Instituto Antártico Chileno (INACH), Dr Gino Casassa Rogazinsky, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Punta Arenas, Chile, last week. The MoU serves to promote the cooperation within the framework of Antarctica InSync and for the work at the Chilean Antarctic station Escudero.

From 23 August to 31 October 2024, the photo exhibition “Wir können Watt - Küstenforschung im Takt der Gezeiten” will take place in the Rathauspark in Westerland. The exhibition is a collaboration between the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) and the municipality of Sylt and provides an insight into the daily work of the institute’s scientists on Sylt, who are investigating the ecosystem on their doorstep and exploring the question of how climate change is altering the Wadden Sea and the North Sea in the long term.

Last weekend, the Alfred Wegener Institute and the Fundación San Ignacio del Huinay celebrated a research milestone with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). AWI director Antje Boetius and vice president Nelson Vásquez L. met at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso in Santiago de Chile. The MoU strengthens 15 years of cooperation focussing on the protection of ecosystems.

In 2001, Prof Karen Wiltshire began investigating changes in the ecosystems of the North Sea, particularly in the Wadden Sea, in connection with anthropogenic and natural influences – like climate change – at the Alfred Wegener Institute. Five years later, she was appointed Vice Director and Director of the AWI’s Biological Institute Helgoland. After working more than two decades in the High North, she assumed a new position at Trinity College Dublin and will found a new climate institute in the Irish capital. For this purpose, she will be on leave. Prof…

For a long time, scientists assumed that jellyfish were a dead-end food source for predatory fish. However, a team from the Alfred Wegener Institute together with the Thünen Institute has now discovered that fish in Greenland waters do indeed feed on jellyfish. In two of the analyzed species, they even made up the majority of the food, as the researchers describe in a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The results suggest that the role of jellyfish as prey in marine food webs should be reconsidered, especially in regards to the…

AWI Director Antje Boetius is taking part in the SCAR Open Science Conference 2024 on international collaboration in Antarctic research. On 22 August, she will lead a workshop at the conference in Pucón, Chile. The workshop will focus on the next steps of the Antarctica InSync programme, which investigates the Southern Ocean and Antarctica as part of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Industrial waste lurks in thousands of sites in the Arctic permafrost regions – some of it is highly toxic. If the permafrost thaws increasingly deeper due to the massive warming of the Arctic deeper and becomes unstable, ecosystems and the local communities can be endangered by the waste. In August, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, together with national and international partners, therefore, keep a close eye on drilling mud pits in the Mackenzie Delta in which residues from oil and gas exploration are stored. The expedition is part of the…