Services

The Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture (IMBBC) / Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) offers four installations.

The HCMR-AQUALABS installation, which enables multidisciplinary research on all stages of aquaculture production (broodstock, eggs, larvae, juveniles, grown-out fish and genetic breeding) of the most commonly cultured Mediterranean species like European sea bass (D. labrax), gilthead sea bream (S. aurata), meagre (A. regius) and greater amberjack (S. dumerili). It consists of:

1. battery of tanks supplied with an automated feeding system (with video, DO and T sensors) – a nutrition unit of 44 indoor tanks (0.05, 0.2, 0.5 and 17 m3), 6 outdoor tanks of 5 m3, and 18 tanks suitable for the determination of nutrient digestibility coefficients for aquafeeds and feed ingredients;

2. mesocosm tanks supplied with feed chain zone for Artemia and rotifer culture and photobioreactors;

3. biochemical laboratory with GC, HPLC, HPTLC Dumas nitrogen analyser, calorimeter, microscopes and PCs for video and image analysis, iv) net-pen cage unit (Souda) for pilot production at sea.

The HCMR-AQUALABS installation supports RDI for established and new aquaculture fish species and receives a constant flow of visitors for research and education purposes. The installation pursuits R&I in:

• a) hatchery technology and larviculture (developmental biology, morphology and ethology),

• b) nutrient and energy requirements and optimisation of feeding, use of alternative sources of nutrients,

• c) fish behaviour in relation to schooling, self-feeding, learning, sorting devices, welfare using automated systems,

• d) production management in cages during grow-out in relation to feeding, behavior and management.

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.

The Genomics & Biodiversity installation (HCMR-BIOGEN), with state-of-the art laboratories and platforms including a) DNA sequencing platform (capillary Sanger, MiSeq Illumina short-read, and longread Oxford Νanopore), b) The bioimaging facility (micro-computed tomography scanner), c) structural and chemical analysis (UHPLC system coupled with a tandem mass spectrometry system MS/MS), and d) a coastal experimental installation unique in the Mediterranean (the “Underwater Biotechnological Park”).

The HCMR-BIOGEN installation supports RDI in genetics including:

1. The development of molecular 74 markers, construction of genetic maps for target species, selective breeding and QTL analysis,

2. Genomics, transcriptomics & gene expression analyses,

3. Population genetics-genomics including stock structure of commercial fishes

4. Microbial diversity & DNA meta-barcoding,

5. Targeted structural and chemical analysis of biomolecules and metabolites from marine organisms, and

6. Taxonomic analysis & phylogeny.

The High-performance computing cluster “Zorbas” (HCMR-HPC), of 400 cores and 5TB memory containing more than 200 bioinformatics packages and pipelines, covering several types of analysis (e.g., assembly, metagenomics, ddRAD analysis, and population genetics).

The HCMR-HPC installation supports users so the latter can conduct research in assembling and analysing reference genomes of marine non-model organisms, in transcriptome analysis, in analysis of microbial diversity (metagenomics), as well as DNA metabarcoding.

Bioresources available

European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), Gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata), Meagre (Argyrosomus regius), Greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili)

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: tank/week. A typical access consists of 12 units. Each unit of access is a batch 12x500-L tanks or 1 mesocosm 40,000-L tank or 6x 500-L hatchery tanks for one week and includes fish, personnel, use of other supporting equipment and consumables (e.g. industrial feed or live feed) for one week.

A user group is expected to stay on average 2 weeks at the installation. For longer experiments the stay can be divided to cover the start and finish of experiments. Users can participate actively in the setting up and/or monitoring of the experiment development.

Scientific and technical assistance will be provided as required. Depending on the nature of the research, and although the experiments may take longer, users may spend two weeks at our institution, either continuously or one week in the beginning and one week at the termination of experimentation.

Remote access is also possible in which a user or user group instructs the installation on the experiments to be carried out.