On 17 June 2026 the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki hosted SturNet’s national awareness-raising event for Greece. Eight papers were presented in the Ach. Panetsos Hall of the School of Veterinary Medicine, before an audience of researchers, academics, students and other interested stakeholders.
The eight papers
- SturNet: objectives and activities
- The Interreg programmes for the Black Sea Basin
- Sturgeon biology, population status and threats
- Environmental DNA (eDNA) in the monitoring of aquatic ecosystems
- Results of the eDNA analyses: detection of sturgeon, of competing species and of harmful micro-organisms
- “Living fossils” and the role of aquaculture in conservation
- Sturgeon aquaculture and black caviar production in Greece
- The DIVERSIFY4FUTURE project: objectives and activities
Environmental DNA as a method of monitoring
Two of the papers were devoted to environmental DNA — the traces of genetic material that every organism leaves in the water, and which make it possible to establish the presence of a species without catching it or even seeing it. For sturgeon this is particularly valuable: they are rare, large and vulnerable, and every capture is stress and risk.
The results presented cover three separate things: the detection of sturgeon themselves, the detection of competing species, and the detection of harmful micro-organisms. The specific values have not been published on the project website, and are therefore not repeated here.
Why this event is part of the project
Awareness-raising events are not an ornament on the scientific work: the point of a project like SturNet is that the results should travel beyond the circle of researchers — to the students who will carry them on, and to the people who take decisions about the rivers and the sea. The hosts’ conclusion was that the event strengthened understanding of the threats facing sturgeon and demonstrated the role of coordinated monitoring and international cooperation in protecting the Black Sea Basin.
The programme and photographs from the event are published on the official project website — sturnet.eu.