Post room

This week, we had the pleasure of welcoming Adélaide Perruchon from the Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV) as part of our collaboration within the BIOcean5D project. Adelaide joined us for the “Imaging Plankton: Tools for Collaborative and Open Monitoring of Marine Plankton” Workshop, where she led hands-on training sessions on the PlanktoScope, an open-source imaging tool designed to democratize plankton observation. Her visit focused on strengthening our capacity to monitor plankton biodiversity through standardized imaging protocols and accessible, low-cost technology.

Over several days of engaging sessions, our colleagues at IICM-Okeanos explored best practices for imaging and analyzing plankton communities. We gained invaluable insight into how decentralized networks of researchers and citizen scientists can contribute to large-scale biodiversity assessments. Importantly, this visit sparked a broader discussion about developing plankton imaging in the Azores, a region where this field remains largely unexplored.

We’re excited to carry forward the momentum generated by this workshop and explore new ways of integrating these tools into our research and regional monitoring efforts