ConfChem Conference on A Virtual Colloquium to Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education—The Global Experiment of the IYC2011: Creating Online Communities for Education and Science

The Global Experiment, Water: A Chemical Solution, was one of the flagship activities of the International Year of Chemistry (IYC). During the virtual colloquium of the spring 2012 online ConfChem conference, the main results of this year-long experiment were presented and discussed online for a week. Some of the main conclusions of the virtual conversations relate to the benefits of creating online communities of people sharing similar interests, the use of online educational platforms to gather massive amounts of data, and specific questions about the development of this IYC initiative. The activities of the global water experiment (GWE) were designed by a team of experts and the protocols are available online on the GWE Web site. The results were shown in one interactive world map that allowed students to learn about data visualization, validation, and interpretation. The feedback obtained from the participants of the GWE and later by the contributors of the virtual colloquium was very positive. Many participants asked specific and technical questions about the development of this experiment, while others excitedly endorsed the convenience of these large open-access activities to promote chemistry worldwide. The estimate is that over 2 million people took part in the GWE during the IYC. This communication summarizes one of the invited papers to the ConfChem online conference: A Virtual Colloquium to Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education, held from May 18 to June 29, 2012 and hosted by the ACS DivCHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education and the IUPAC Committee on Chemistry Education.

Spatial Distribution of Marine Epibenthic Communities in the Hola Trough (Vesterålen, Northern Norway)

The Lofoten-Vesterålen marine shelf is one of the most geologically diverse coast and offshore margin areas in Norway. This leads to huge heterogeneity in marine environments, and often high biodiversity. However, little is known yet about the benthic communities in this region. Within the ARCTOS LoVe MarineEco project the epibenthic communities of the Hola trough (Vesterålen) are analysed to give a first description of their spatial distribution. In this trough both a complex hydrodynamic system and varied topographic submarine elements occur. Trawling samples were collected for two different approaches: one in a meso-scale and another in a small-scale. For the broad scale a transect consisting in three stations was developed, while for the fine scale a small area on a sand wave field, consisting in five stations called HolaBox, was sampled. All organisms were intended to be identified to species level and colonial fauna was discarded for the analysis. Different diversity indexes were assessed (Shannon index (H’) and Pielou’s eveness (J’)). Clustering and nMDS analyses identified four statistically significant groups in terms of abundance (ind./100m2). A total amount of 211 different taxa were found within all stations. The more outer part of the transect (close to the shelf edge) presented a huge abundance of organisms and was dominated by the hemi sessile tube-builder polychaetes Nothria conchylega and Eunice dubitata and the sea urchin Gacilechinus acutus, while the more inner parts presented less abundance of individuals. Probably some upwelling produced by the Norwegian Atlantic Current (NWAC) is influencing the shelf edge increasing the primary production and, therefore, enriching the seafloor in this region. The sand wave field presented two different groups with few amount of individuals. Small-scale variability could be produced by the high heterogeneity within the different types of sand waves, while the scarce abundance of animals can be produced by the permanent changing environment that movable sand waves produce. Here more active and mobile fauna was found such as brittle stars and hermit crabs (among others). Finally, a fourth group was found in the most inner station of the transect, laying on a ridge in the central part of the trough. This station, with coarse substrate, was mainly dominated again by brittle stars and sea urchins. We can conclude that this is a really heterogeneous trough in environments and therefore in communities (even in a local scale). More detailed studies that focus in the local environmental drivers have to be carried out to get an integrated understanding of the structure of benthic communities in this system.