A Brighter Future: AWI Research from the Arctic to Aquaculture

How much sea is there in our every­day lives — and how much future is there in the Arctic? On 25 Septem­ber, the Unit­ed Nations World Maritime Day reminds us how inex­tri­ca­bly linked life on Earth is with the oceans. Its motto “Our Ocean, Our Respon­si­bil­i­ty, Our Oppor­tu­ni­ty” outlines the central role that the oceans play for ecol­o­gy and econ­o­my world­wide. We are taking this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to present two current projects from the Alfred Wegen­er Insti­tute AWI , which we support: “Shrim­p­Wiz” shows how AWI research has an impact on super­mar­ket shelves and our plates. And with the CONTRASTS expe­di­tion, the Polarstern will embark on a jour­ney through the past, present and future of Arctic ice development.

A day for ocean awareness

In addi­tion to World Oceans Day  on 8 June, World Maritime Day is the second date in the calen­dar that reminds people world­wide of the impor­tance and protec­tion of the world’s oceans. With over 80 per cent of glob­al trade in goods, ship­ping is the largest econom­ic sector in the maritime indus­try. Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Maritime Organ­i­sa­tion IMO ((Link3)), it there­fore plays a key role in the protec­tion of the oceans and the sustain­able use of ocean­ic resources. The IMO is commit­ted to ensur­ing clean and safe seas in its 176 member states with an inter­na­tion­al set of regu­la­tions and, above all, a steadi­ly grow­ing number of tech­ni­cal support projects.

Shrim­p­Wiz: an AI shrimp keeper

The shrimp avail­able in our shops usual­ly come from land-based farms, often from outside the EU. Howev­er, species-appro­pri­ate husbandry in these facil­i­ties is complex and not always guar­an­teed: The oper­a­tors have to fish the animals regu­lar­ly to check the condi­tion of the farm. This leads to stress and reduces animal welfare. Under the lead­er­ship of the Alfred Wegen­er Insti­tute, a research group is now work­ing with the compa­ny Ocean­loop to inves­ti­gate how a land-based shrimp farm can be set up that guar­an­tees animal welfare and is econom­i­cal­ly viable for compa­nies. In this “Shrim­p­Wiz” project, an AI counts and analy­ses the stock, iden­ti­fies sick animals and also controls the supply.

Dr Stephan Ende, the coor­di­na­tor of the project at AWI, is convinced that this is the key to animal welfare issues in inten­sive aqua­cul­ture facil­i­ties: “The use of image recog­ni­tion soft­ware to measure the shrimp enables accu­rate and non-inva­sive moni­tor­ing of animal welfare and produc­tiv­i­ty in shrimp farm­ing — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The clear water tech­nol­o­gy in combi­na­tion with our ‘Early Welfare Alert’ soft­ware can be the start­ing point for any welfare labelling in the future shrimp industry.”

Read more about the Shrim­p­Wiz project here …

Trav­el­ling through space and time with the Polarstern 

The past, present and future of the pack ice are the “stations” of the current voyage of the AWI flag­ship Polarstern. On the expe­di­tion in the Arctic Ocean, called CONTRASTS, an inter­na­tion­al research team is inves­ti­gat­ing the feed­back between glob­al warm­ing and the retreat of ice floes at sea. There are three types of ice floes, repre­sent­ing the Arctic of the past decades, the present and the future: One-year-old sea ice from the past winter often drifts at the edge of the ice zone and is expect­ed to domi­nate the Arctic of the future. Two-year-old sea ice drifts over the polar ice cap until it melts in the Fram Strait; it is char­ac­ter­is­tic of the present. Final­ly, multi-year sea ice persists for years north of Green­land and Cana­da; it orig­i­nates from the so-called “last ice zone” north of Green­land and was still wide­spread decades ago. In the mean­time, glob­al warm­ing is caus­ing older and there­fore thick­er ice floes to melt more frequently.

“We are partic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in gain­ing a better under­stand­ing of which sea ice survives the melt­ing in summer and which does not. This is because the Arctic is warm­ing partic­u­lar­ly quick­ly compared to the rest of the world, and warm air and water temper­a­tures are affect­ing the ice from above and below,” explains Dr Marcel Nico­laus from the AWI, who is lead­ing the expe­di­tion of 51 scien­tists. He contin­ues: “Our goal is to better under­stand the role of shrink­ing and remain­ing sea ice in the Arctic summer, so that we can also better predict future devel­op­ments in the Arctic.”

Read more about the Polarstern’s current research cruise here … 

Valdivia and the sea — a profound connection

Deep perfor­mance, passion for the sea — that’s how we found our name Valdivia. After all, “Valdivia” was the name of the first German research vessel to set out on a system­at­ic explo­ration of the deep sea in 1898. This connec­tion moti­vates us to support the explo­ration and protec­tion of the oceans in a prac­ti­cal way: as member of the support asso­ci­a­tion of the Alfred Wegen­er Insti­tute, the lead­ing German scien­tif­ic organ­i­sa­tion for marine and polar research. We cordial­ly invite you to join!