Services

The Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture (IMBBC) / Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) offers four installations. One of them is The Ecosystem Access & Sampling installation (HCMR-ECO) includes a fully equipped scientific scuba diving facility with highly trained scientific divers and an inflatable boat, as well as sampling equipment. It provides access to coastal ecosystems and biological resources of the oligotrophic and rich-inbiodiversity Eastern Mediterranean Sea (Cretan and Libyan Seas), including hard and soft bottom benthos, seagrass and algal meadows, sub-marine caves, and coralliferous formations.

The HCMR-ECO installation offers access to the coastal biodiversity and ecosystems of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and supports research in marine ecology and biodiversity, including sampling of organisms, data collection, photo/video documentation, sensor deployment and retrieval, and manipulative experiments. Bioresources available on demand.

Support offered

HCMR offers its installation to researchers, students and trainees to carry out high-level research in accordance with AQUASERV objectives. The AQUASERV users will be provided access to the internet, a desk, and will be offered the possibility to work with the different groups of activities at the Institute. The users will benefit from the guidance of highly qualified HCMR scientists for the preparation of the stay and during laboratory analyses.

Modality of access

Modality of access is Unit cost: user-group/day. A typical access consists of 5 units of access.

Access to ecosystems for experiments or to biological resources, is provided through the SCUBA diving facility with expert scientific divers. Users can also dive if they have the relevant qualifications.