Summer 2024 Environmental Chemistry and Marine Biology Research on Hvar
Figure 1. Hvar High school and Boz Institute research team, summer 2024. Pictured are five of the seven students
In late summer 2024, Pharos Institute and Boz Institute completed fieldwork for a Hvar-based environmental chemistry and marine biology research project. During September, seven high school juniors, a Hvar science teacher, and scientists from Boz Institute (Figure 1) deployed 16 environmental sensors in the sea in and around Stari Grad, Hvar, and several other locations on the island (Figures 2 and 3). These sensors (Composite Integrative Passive Samplers / CIPS) deployed for ten days, capture both water- and lipid-soluble chemicals and are used to characterize > 600,000 known chemicals, including many carcinogens, mutagens, and persistent organic industrial pollutants. Our goal is to assess sea water quality around the Island and test for presence of industrial chemicals (polychlorinated biphenyls, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, plasticizers, and other toxicants).
Figure 2. Deployment sites (16 blue pins) indicate locations of deployed chemical sensors around the Island of Hvar.
Figure 3. Hvar high school and Boz teams prepare and deploy chemical sensors near the town of Hvar.
Besides sea water chemical profiling, our team took numerous sea water measurements (pH, salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, conductivity / salinity) and collected both bay mussels and sea urchins at each site (Figure 4): the animal tissues were dissected (Figure 5) and prepared for the chemical content analysis and metagenomic sequencing, quantifying the presence of bacteria, viruses, parasites, and other microbes. Pending our chemistry and microbiology results, several animal tissues will be used for selected genes’ and enzymes’ expression profiling.
Figure 4. Hvar research scholars collecting mussels and sea urchins at the study site.
Figure 5. Hvar high school research team dissecting and preparing mussels and sea urchin tissues for chemical and metagenomic analysis.
Hvar students and the Boz team will continue to work virtually, processing and normalizing the data, performing statistical analysis, and preparing the manuscript for a submission to a peer-reviews scientific journal by the late winter / early spring 2025.
As part of Pharos Institute’s Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences collaboration with Boz Institute, several planned projects for the summer 2025 research program include 1) genome sequencing of the benthic tunnel-worm and transcriptomic analysis of its evolutionary conserved regenerative genetics and physiology, 2) assessing habitat distribution and effects of fire worm (Hermodice carunculata) on biodiversity, and 3) correlation of warming sea temperatures with the distribution and prevalence of photosynthetic sea grasses (Posidonia oceanic) around the island.
This pilot project has been generously supported by the Matko and Vera Miličić Foundation, Mayor’s offices from Hvar and Stari Grad, and the Island of Hvar Nautical Center. Funding for research is provided by Statera, Inc (North Carolina, U.S.), and Boz Life Science Institute (San Diego, U.S.).
