Excursion of the University of Basel to Tarifa

For the fourth time already, Professor David G. Senn from the University of Basel came to Tarifa with one of his courses. From April 24 to May 03, 2007 the students had a look into several marine biological themes with the common focus in the field of plankton and - of course - the whales.
If possible, plankton samples were taken out of the ocean every day, which were observed and investigated afterwards under the microscope. We noticed a strong similarity between the composition of plankton found last year and this year. At the beginning we could watch a lot of winged snails and of course there were many copepods. At the end of the course we also saw other organisms under the microscope, for example salps.
Besides we also had a lot of sightings of whales and dolphins. Most of the participants were lucky to see not only Bottlenose Dolphins, Common Dolphins and Striped Dolphins but also Sperm Whales.

pictures above: left side: winged snail ; right side: foraminifers ; (pictures:casi)

The first part of the course served to adjust the participants to the marine biology and to give them the basics and helpful suggestions. They needed those suggestions in the second part of the course for being acquainted with different themes, which they presented afterwards. Besides the introductory lectures we also did excursions to the littoral with the purpose of creating a holistic idea of marine habitats.

picture above: Professor Senn and some students at the littoral (Picture: firmm)

pictures above: presentations take place and questions are discussed; (pictures: casi)

Besides the scientific work there was enough time to get to know Tarifa with its bars and restaurants.

-casi-