100 years of Wadden Sea research in List on Sylt

Germany’s northernmost town, List on Sylt, is also home to its northernmost research facilities – and has been for the past 100 years. Back in 1924, in the middle of the “Roaring Twenties”, a small branch laboratory of the Biological Institute Helgoland (BAH) was founded in List. At the time, the proclaimed purpose of the new BAH research site on Sylt was “to conduct scientific and fishery-relevant research concerning the fiscally important oyster beds and the development of methods for artificial oyster breeding” (source: Helgoländer Meeresuntersuchungen, 47 (Suppl.), 1997). In the early 20th century, oyster stocks in the North Sea had declined radically due to intensive fishing. Researchers of the day not only assessed chemical and physical parameters, but also took stock of the soil fauna in the southern North Sea and Wadden Sea. After being founded in 1924, the station had an extremely varied history, enjoying a heyday after the Second World War, nearly being shut down in 1959, and experiencing a revival in the 1970s. Despite all the ups and downs, the List-based institute is a true success story, with a small field outpost for oyster research growing to become an indispensable hotspot for German coastal and Wadden Sea research in the course of a century.

In 1998, the Biological Institute Helgoland – and with it, the research station on Sylt – was integrated into the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Today, roughly 45 researchers and support staff work at the AWI Wadden Sea Station on Sylt. They are frequently joined by visiting experts from around the globe, who can find here – just a stone’s throw from the Wadden Sea – the ideal point of departure for research at sea, on the mudflats, or at the station’s labs. In addition, every year, up to 400 students from various universities visit the station to deepen their grasp of the unique and endangered Wadden Sea ecosystem through coursework.

What started as just a few rented rooms in 1924 is, 100 years later, a fully equipped AWI research centre. Today, the Wadden Sea Station consists of a spacious main building, extensively renovated in 2008, that is home to a range of laboratories; sample preparation and storage rooms; climate-controlled rooms with flow-through aquariums; classrooms and a library. The station also features two guest houses for visiting researchers and its own research vessel, the Mya II, which is equipped with bleeding-edge oceanographic surveying systems and was awarded the environmental certification “Blue Angel for Ship Design”.

The station is also home to the AWI’s Coastal Ecology Section. Its research focus is on the local North Sea and on the Wadden Sea ecosystem, both of which are rapidly being transformed by global warming. The research team on Sylt addresses e.g. the development of salt marshes and seagrass meadows, as well as coastal hydrography and geology. The responses of the sensitive North Sea habitat are already clearly recognisable in the time series gathered in List, like the monthly fish monitoring in Sylt-Rømø Bight and the Sylt Roads series, which has been consistently updated twice a week since 1973. Since 2021, the future effects of climate change on the North Sea and Wadden Sea have been simulated and assessed at an experimentation facility consisting of 30 large (1,800 litre each) seawater-filled tanks referred to as the mesocosmos system. In List, forecasts are also made using the computer model FESOM-C, which was specifically developed for coastal forecasts. Lastly, the station’s latest findings are conveyed to political decision-makers, government offices, and environmental protection organisations through the AWI North Sea Office, and to interested members of the public in close cooperation with the museum “Erlebniszentrum Naturgewalten”, located adjacent to the station.

You can find further information on the history and research activities of the AWI’s Wadden Sea Station on Sylt at the special centennial website https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/sites/sylt/100-years-of-wadden-sea-station-sylt.html.

To celebrate the centennial, there is currently an ongoing series of presentations at the Erlebniszentrum Naturgewalten in List. You can find the presentation schedule here: www.naturgewalten-sylt.de/vortraege/.

To celebrate its 100-year anniversary, the AWI Wadden Sea Station on Sylt will host an Open House Day on 7 September 2024.