Marine researcher Sebastian Nikitas Politis has received a donation of DKK 2 million kroner from the Villum Foundation's Experiment program for his research project TAG-EEL, which seeks to penetrate the mystery of the European eel.
Sebastian Nikitas Politis, a researcher at DTU Aqua, is one of 17 researchers at DTU that the Villum Foundation has selected to receive a million grant (DDK) from the Experiment program for their further research. Sebastian Nikitas Politis has received an Experiment grant of DKK 2 million kroner.
“I am more than happy! We have been planning this research for some time now. It will be challenging, but I am super excited to face this challenge," says Sebastian Nikitas Politis.
The Villum Foundation writes about their Experiment program that "it is the land of curiosity-driven research". The foundation invited technical and scientific researchers of all ages to send their "most daring research ideas, which they were eager to test at a Danish university."
One of the daring research ideas that has now been given funding to live on is Sebastian Nikitas Politis' TAG-EEL project, i.e. research into developing advanced tagging technology to find out the spawning area of the European eel.
In your own words, why did you get the Experiment grant?
"Generally, detection of spawning areas is a crucial facet of fish stock surveys, fish biology research, and ecology studies, but identifying the European eel spawning area is considered the holy grail of fish research," says Sebastian Nikitas Politis and elaborates:
"Unfortunately, the European eel is critically endangered, and despite being an ancient fish species, we still have not identified the spawning location. The eel lives in freshwater habitats and migrates to the sea to spawn, but the spawning area is still a mystery.”
One of nature’s most spectacular and still mysterious spawning migration journeys
The European eel, anguilla anguilla, is of considerable ecological, economic and social importance, but when natural populations fell to historic lows, it became critically endangered.
According to Sebastian Nikitas Politis, the lack of knowledge of the eel's spawning migration prevents the management needed to preserve the eel. At the same time, the researchers lack the crucial knowledge about environmental and nutritional conditions for eggs and larvae in the natural spawning ground, which is needed to develop sustainable aquaculture for the eel.
"Our TAG-EEL project may seem legitimately brave with a limited chance of success, but if it succeeds with the help of this grant, the results will provide transformative understanding of one of the longest standing biological enigmas, the whereabouts of the European eel’s spawning grounds and knowledge about one of nature’s most spectacular and still mysterious spawning migration journeys," says Sebastian Nikitas Politis.
Part of the TAG-EEL project involves tagging silver eels with optimized techniques and technology to identify the migration routes and spawning area. The silver eels are collected from the wild via legal fishing.
The data results that the researchers get back from the tagged silver eels will form the basis for developing entirely new methods for future studies of eels and other species of ecological, social and economic importance.
"Such results will also be of immense importance for designing follow-up pan-European large scale tagging initiatives. And for tracking eels from all over the European continent during their enigmatic migration towards spawning grounds, which has so far been challenging due to technological and biological limitations," says Sebastian Nikitas Politis.
Photo: private
The Villum Experiment grant was created for technical and scientific research projects that challenge the norm and have the potential to change the way we approach important topics. The applicants are anonymous to the international assessors in order to sharpen the focus on the research ideas and allow the researchers to think freely.
Read the foundation's press release