Everyone’s experience at AIMM is unique. The programme is tailored to your learning interests, allowing you to decide which aspect of marine fieldwork you want to explore, or even get assistance for your personal marine research projects.

 

The atmosphere is informal and familiar, and household chores will be shared and carried out by everyone. It is also important to keep in mind that the team includes most often members of different countries with different levels of English, so fellow participants need to be patient with each other.

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Ongoing Projects

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Surveillance and monitoring of marine megafauna in coastal waters off the Algarve, Portugal

The distribution and population dynamics of marine megafauna, namely cetaceans, sea turtles and sharks, inhabiting the South of Portugal are poorly known. As are top predators they play a crucial role in their ecosystems. However, they also attract attention, making them ambassadors of marine environment conservation efforts. AIMM focuses most of its research efforts in the first general study on the occurrence, distribution, and abundance of cetaceans in the Southern coast of Portugal. 

This study will allow us to know which species inhabit these waters, why and how they use their habitat while verifying their conservation status and the potential threats they face.

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Characterisation and improvement of the whale-watching tourism activity along the South coast of Portugal

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Social organization and behaviour among large brained mammals: Maternal Strategies as an evolution factor

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Ecology of marine megafauna and potential effects of climate change

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Studying Cetaceans through acoustics

Marine mammals rely on acoustics to communicate, navigate and explore their environment.  Acoustic studies with marine mammal allow us to understand how these animals use the sound but also permit to detect and track them in their habitat. Given these advantages and complementariry with visual methods traditionally used, AIMM recently started to use acoustics to strengthen the study of the distribution and abundance of these animals in the most Southern region of Portugal.