{"id":9230,"date":"2026-09-20T19:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T17:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/praxisschock\/?p=9230"},"modified":"2026-06-02T22:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T20:03:29","slug":"marine-biology-internship-at-the-carmabi-research-station-in-curacao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/praxisschock\/2026\/09\/20\/marine-biology-internship-at-the-carmabi-research-station-in-curacao\/","title":{"rendered":"Marine Biology internship at the Carmabi research station in Cura\u00e7ao"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Background of the internship<\/strong>
\nI have had the opportunity to participate in a research project that took place on the Caribbean island of Cura\u00e7ao. The project, in which the internship was conducted, focuses on sponges and their interaction with coral reefs. It is centered more on marine biology, and the internship gave me the opportunity to gain valuable experience in this field, which is not the main focus of my Marine Geosciences master\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

Carmabi is a well-known research station in the Caribbean, with a primary focus on coral reefs and their associated ecology.<\/p>\n

The research project focuses on encrusting sponge species and how they take up dissolved organic matter produced by corals. This interaction was discovered at Carmabi several years ago and has since become an increasingly important focus in marine biology.<\/p>\n

The island of Cura\u00e7ao<\/strong>
\nThe island of Cura\u00e7ao was truly a unique experience. It has been influenced by many different cultures throughout its history. The European influence cannot be overlooked, due to its colonial past. Still being part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Dutch is among the most widely spoken languages on the island, and most tourists come from the Netherlands. Nevertheless, due to its location, there is also a strong Latin American influence on the culture. This is reflected in the \u201claissez-faire\u201d way of life, where everything happens in its own time and time itself seems to be a very flexible concept.<\/p>\n

Personally, this helped me in the beginning to adjust to the hot weather. I left snowy Amsterdam in January and, after a 10-hour flight, landed in 30-degree heat. The one thing I needed time to get used to was that at night, the temperature does not drop by more than 3 degrees, so opening the window for some cool air does not work.<\/p>\n

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Research<\/strong>
\nThe work on sponges began with a lot of scuba diving on the reef next to the research station. The appropriate sponge species and sizes needed to be found in order to place them in an aquarium in the wet lab. For me, it was the first time diving on a coral reef, which was a wonderful experience.<\/p>\n

Back in the wet lab, various incubation experiments with the sponges and corals were conducted. I collected water samples from the incubation setups to filter later in the laboratory at Carmabi.<\/p>\n\n\t\t