Rich biodiversity of sand dunes · grade, will be eventually published in the scientific journal...
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Sunday, February 13, 2005, 00:00 by Alan Deidun Rich biodiversity of sand dunes The Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences (IOPAS) and the (Centre of Excellence for Shelf Seas Science (CeSSS) organised a marine biology conference in Sopot, Poland, between October 12 and 15 on "The role of biodiversity in simple, physically driven ecosystems with special focus on sandy sediments". Sopot is Poland's best-known seaside resort on the Baltic Coast and is situated between Gdansk and Gdynia. Already in the 16th century, Gdansk residents began building their summer houses there, but it really began to flourish after Jean Georges Haffner arrived in 1808 and set up a health resort. The conference was held in the institute's main building in Sopot, which covers a staggering 3,500m2. The institute, which succeeded the Marine Station of Sopot, was founded by the Polish government in 1983 in recognition of a national need to manage the marine environment and marine resources. IOPAS conducts scientific research in shelf seas and coastal waters, including the Baltic and European Arctic Seas, bolstered by its top-notch research vessel, Oceania, launched in 1986 from the shipbuilding facilities of Gdansk, and which has an unlimited range of operation, besides being endowed with modem oceanographic instrumentation. The impressive 50-metre-long vessel spends 230 to 250 days at sea and is enough to water the appetite of any local beleaguered researcher. IOPAS' four main strategic fields of study are: c The role of the ocean in climate change and its effects on the European Seas c Natural and anthropogenic variability in the Baltic Sea environment c Contemporary changes in the coastal ecosystems of shelf seas c Genetic and physiological mechanisms of functioning marine organisms, principles of marine biotechnology Presentations Researchers at the conference hailed from various countries. The 18 presentations were divided into five cohorts, i.e.: Ecology of oceanic sandy shores; Ecology of brackish/estuarine sandy habitats; The functional significance of biodiversity for stream ecosystems; Lake beach ecosystems and Sandy biota of rivers. In a prelude to each topic, keynote speeches were delivered by some of the top experts in the fields being tackled, such as Professor Anton Mclachlan, who expounded on current trends in sandy beach research. The only presentation from Malta, "Faunistic diversity of Maltese pocket sandy and shingle beaches: are these of conservation value?" (by M. Gauci, A. Deidun, and P.J. Schembri) was included under the umbrella of the second topic since it compared the fauna to be found on sandy and on shingle/cobble beaches in the Maltese Islands. The onus of such a paper was that sandy and shingle beaches harbour almost completely different faunal assemblages and that they exhibit a phenomenon known as 'compartmentalisation' - i.e. each beach harbours a unique fauna, which hence, should be safeguarded, also since species on such shores (which constitute just 2.4% of the Maltese coastline) are found in low numbers. A kaleidoscopic run through the other presentations will reveal that the food webs found on sandy beaches were tackled (K. Bezuidenhout), as well as the effect of environmental factors and anthropogenic impacts on the distribution of the sandhopper Talitrus saltator (M.E.F. Bouslama and M.F. Jedrzejczak), which is also recorded from our shores. Other intriguing contributions included the assessment of offroad vehicles on the dune and beach biota in South Africa (N. Kruger) and the measuring of nutrient and carbon release
Transcript of Rich biodiversity of sand dunes · grade, will be eventually published in the scientific journal...
Sunday, February 13, 2005, 00:00 by Alan Deidun
Rich biodiversity of sand dunes
The Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences (IOPAS) and the (Centre of Excellence for Shelf Seas Science (CeSSS) organised a marine biology conference in Sopot, Poland, between October 12 and 15 on "The role of biodiversity in simple, physically driven ecosystems with special focus on sandy sediments".
Sopot is Poland's best-known seaside resort on the Baltic Coast and is situated between Gdansk and Gdynia. Already in the 16th century, Gdansk residents began building their summer houses there, but it really began to flourish after Jean Georges Haffner arrived in 1808 and set up a health resort.
The conference was held in the institute's main building in Sopot, which covers a staggering 3,500m2. The institute, which succeeded the Marine Station of Sopot, was founded by the Polish government in 1983 in recognition of a national need to manage the marine environment and marine resources. IOPAS conducts scientific research in shelf seas and coastal waters, including the Baltic and European Arctic Seas, bolstered by its top-notch research vessel, Oceania, launched in 1986 from the shipbuilding facilities of Gdansk, and which has an unlimited range of operation, besides being endowed with modem oceanographic instrumentation. The impressive 50-metre-long vessel spends 230 to 250 days at sea and is enough to water the appetite of any local beleaguered researcher.
IOPAS' four main strategic fields of study are:
c The role of the ocean in climate change and its effects on the European Seas
c Natural and anthropogenic variability in the Baltic Sea environment
c Contemporary changes in the coastal ecosystems of shelf seas
c Genetic and physiological mechanisms of functioning marine organisms, principles of marine biotechnology
Presentations Researchers at the conference hailed from various countries. The 18 presentations were divided into five cohorts, i.e.: Ecology of oceanic sandy shores; Ecology of brackish/estuarine sandy habitats; The functional significance of biodiversity for stream ecosystems; Lake beach ecosystems and Sandy biota of rivers.
In a prelude to each topic, keynote speeches were delivered by some of the top experts in the fields being tackled, such as Professor Anton Mclachlan, who expounded on current trends in sandy beach research.
The only presentation from Malta, "Faunistic diversity of Maltese pocket sandy and shingle beaches: are these of conservation value?" (by M. Gauci, A. Deidun, and P.J. Schembri) was included under the umbrella of the second topic since it compared the fauna to be found on sandy and on shingle/cobble beaches in the Maltese Islands.
The onus of such a paper was that sandy and shingle beaches harbour almost completely different faunal assemblages and that they exhibit a phenomenon known as 'compartmentalisation' - i.e. each beach harbours a unique fauna, which hence, should be safeguarded, also since species on such shores (which constitute just 2.4% of the Maltese coastline) are found in low numbers.
A kaleidoscopic run through the other presentations will reveal that the food webs found on sandy beaches were tackled (K. Bezuidenhout), as well as the effect of environmental factors and anthropogenic impacts on the distribution of the sandhopper Talitrus saltator (M.E.F. Bouslama and M.F. Jedrzejczak), which is also recorded from our shores.
Other intriguing contributions included the assessment of offroad vehicles on the dune and beach biota in South Africa (N. Kruger) and the measuring of nutrient and carbon release
through the decomposition of stranded Zostera marina (M. Feike). The latter presentation could potentially be also applied to local stranded banquettes of Posidonia oceanica to quantify the ecosystem contribution of this keystone species. All contributions, subject to their making the grade, will be eventually published in the scientific journal Oceanologia.
Besides the presentations, as is customary in most scientific conferences, a poster presentation was also put up and this spanned over topics such as the potential to use fungi and yeast as sand quality indicators in Ligurian sandy beaches in Italy, the detritus stranded on beaches, behavioural mechanisms exhibited by the sandhopper Talitrus saltator and even the ecology of two Arctic beaches near Bear Island, Svalbard.
Ancillary activities One of the crux points of the conference was the visit to Slavinski National Park, located on the middle portion of Poland's 500 km-long Baltic coastline. The park established on January 1, 1967, houses some of the most breathtaking scenery in Europe, especially when one considers that we are at such a low latitude.
In what has been aptly dubbed the 'Polish Sahara', the park encompasses white, mobile dunes which reach a maximum height of 42m (at Biale Gory) and which instil in the visitor a notion of being high up in the Alps due to the unblemished white colour of the sand. Intriguing is the fact that the area of today's park used to be a bay, which, following the vehement action of waves and wind, has turned the whole area into the Gardensko-Lebska Spit.
The dunes in the park are among the most prolific of movers - from two to 12 km annually to the east, swamping anything in their path. The most cogent evidence of this is the trail of dead trees left in the wake of the shifting dunes. The transient nature of part of the dunes is such that on the higher slopes, even the most resilient of dune species throw in the towel on seeking to gain a foothold, leaving the slopes completely bare.
The park also reserves to the Mediterranean visitor the privilege of unhindered views of the coastline, shorn of any hints of ribbon development which plague our coasts. Such a desolation is soothing balm for anyone accustomed to obtrusive tourist projects since it regales some rare silence.
Since 1977, the park has been enrolled onto UNESCO's World Biosphere List, both for its sheer landscape value and for its ecology, which, besides the profuse dune species, includes about 250 bird species, such as the cormorant, the black stork, the sandpiper, the kingfisher and the columbine.
Among the attractions in Sopot are a 515 m-long pier, along whose deck stretches Europe's longest bench (built in 1 928), the picturesque Bath Building and Rheumatological Hospital (built in 1903-1904, just a stone's throw from the beach) and the Grand Hotel, built in 1927 with heavy nuances of Wilhelminian Baroque.
The author would like to thank the Polish organisers of the conference - IOPAS and CESSS, for making his visit to Poland and his scientific contribution to the conference possible.
