From Wadden Sea to marker wadden

The day after the Saba Bank Symposium, I headed in the early morning with colleagues from NIOO-KNAW to Groningen. 

The symposium was organised by my supervisor Liesbeth Bakker and Bart Grutter, both from the Aquatic Ecology department of NIOO. The syposium brought both aquatic ecologists and marine biologists to talk about the newly built islands in the Marker Wadden region in The Netherlands.

The symposium was opened by Liesbeth Bakker and Han Olff, a professor from the Rijksuniversiteit of Groningn, and coincidentally also Guido's supervisor of his internship.

Many people attended the symposium, differing from BSc students, PhD's, professors and people from the Dutch ministry.  Many organisations, such as the Natuurmonumenten, Deltares and NIOZ were present. The most interesting talks were from Han Olff (RUG) and Jan van Gils (NIOZ). 

Han Olff presented how it work with "novel ecosystems" and if they exists and how to deal with them in newly man-made areas.

Jan van Gils presented the bird-aspect of the whole Marker Wadden project, the impact on the birds in the past few years here in the Netherlands and how important our country is to birds who migrate all the way down to Mauritania.

It was good to meet new people from other institutes and organisations. As a newly graduated BSc student I was happy to attend such an important symposium. 

Soon after the break I left towards Amsterdam for the next meeting: Save Our Sharks! Read more next time!