Biological stations

Biological stations (біологічні станції or біостанції; biolohichna stantsii or biostantsii). Scientific institutions where research on biological phenomena under specific conditions is conducted. There are various biological stations: marine, river, lake, freshwater, forest, desert, steppe, mountain, etc. The first biological station in Ukraine was created by Illia Mechnikov and Aleksandr Kovalevsky in 1871–2 in Sevastopol. The purpose of the Sevastopol Biological Station was to study the biological phenomena of the Black Sea. In 1907–14 the Kara-Dag station near Teodosiia was created, and then, in 1954, the Odesa station. Out of these three biological stations the Institute of the Biology of Southern Seas of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR was established in 1963. The Kherson Hydrobiological Station belongs to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In 1919 the Agricultural Scientific Committee of Ukraine initiated a system of biological stations at nature preserves.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]