Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn
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Villa Comunale 80121 Napoli Italy http://www.szn.it |
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The Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn was founded in 1873 by the German zoologist Anton Dohrn. Its mission is scientific research in Marine Biology: the study of the biology of marine organisms, their interactions with the environment. The main building is located in the Villa Comunale and operates a historic aquarium open to the general public. The Benthic Ecology laboratory is at Ischia Porto (Naples) and the Turtle point at Bagnoli (Naples). SZN does not operate a guesthouse given supply of hotels nearby. SZN employs 107 permanent staff (48 researchers), 25 contract personnel and 54 students.
Research: Animal Physiology and Evolution, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution of Plankton and Functional and Evolutionary Ecology.
Marine facilities: 3 coastal research vessels for SCUBA diving and sampling; access includes all onboard research equipments, an ROV, and technical support from vessel crew. Research divers operate a scuba diving service.
Platforms: "Wet" platforms include, climate-controlled rooms, and 100 tanks with filtered, cooled and UV-sterilized local seawater. Services exist for sampling and maintenance of marine organisms, molecular biology (high throughput sequencing, robotic sample handling, bioinformatics), digital imaging (SEM, TEM, light and confocal microscopy, and image elaboration), flow-cytometry, plankton identification, in-situ hybridization, a library and an IT service. Visitors have access to all services, including administration. Service platforms and research laboratories are managed and operated by dedicated staff available for training visitors.
Access to marine environments: Posidonia beds, LTER MareChiara for monitoring of environmental data, phyto-, zoo- and bacterioplankton, Biota on rocky and sandy substrata, a high-CO2 volcanic marine site.
Main marine model organisms used: SZN has extensive experience with collecting and maintaining model species and performing multidisciplinary research on these organisms: Amphioxus, Caretta, Ciona, cephalopods, copepods, sea urchins, Posidonia, planktonic microalgae.
Supervising body: the Italian ministry of Research and Education (MIUR)
