Overview

The Hel Marine Station (HMS) was established in 1992 and is a field station in the organisational structure of the Institute of Oceanography in the Faculty of Oceanography and Geography at the University of Gdánsk (UG). UG-HMS offers TA services for ASSEMBLE Plus and UG is one of the Polish partners.

As the only station of its kind in Poland, it is open to the research needs of the whole scientific community of the country and provides field support for all research groups working in this region (academic teams from various higher schools, institutes in this line of work, and the Polish Academy of Sciences). In accordance with the nature of natural history research, the station is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The research topics of HMS are: 1) the biology and ecology of the fish found in the coastal zone of the Baltic 2) the biology and ecology of Baltic marine mammals 3) the protection of rare species and biotopes in the Baltic.

Ecosystems

• Benthic and pelagic ecosystems in the Puck Bay, Gulf of Gdánsk and open Baltic Sea

Ecosystem access

• Coastal research vessels (On-site and remote service)
  • Motor boats with oceanographic material and sampling equiment
  • Baltic Sea, Open sea, Coastal Zone
  • Species that can be collected from the boats: plankton, benthos and nekton, mainly molluscs, crustaceans, olychaetes, oligochaetes, jellyfish, fish, cyanobacteria, micro- and macroalgae, bacteria
• Scuba civing facilities (On-site and remote service)​​​​​​​
  • For sampling, monitoring (also hydro-acoustic), and in-situ experiments
  • Baltic Sea, Coastal Zone
• Sampling equipment (On-site and remote service)​​​​​​​
  • Sediment samplers (box corer, Van Veen grab, vibro corer, gravity corer and others),
    niskin bottles, rosette sampler, dredges, trawls, gill nets

Experimental facilities

• Aquaria and tanks (On-site service)​​​​​​​
  • Open circulatory systems, filtration, thermostatic tanks
• Wet labs (On-site service)​​​​​​​
  • Environmental samples processing
    This lab is equiped in simple microscopes and is used mainly for species identification

Service staff will provide training where necessary and assist with troubleshooting. The station provides bedrooms, seminar rooms and a canteen. Administration will support external visitors in organisation of accommodation, transportation and food.