Skip to main content

Research theme 5: Influence of temperature on summer phytoplankton communities and mussels in Tjärnö Bay

The increase of temperature due to climate change has raised concern about communities of organisms in the marine environment. Two of these communities, phytoplankton and mussels, are particularly important for Tjarnö bay. Indeed phytoplankton is at the origin of the food web, is vital for the mussels’ development and can also be the cause of harmful algae blooms affecting both tourism and recreational fishing in this area. Our project focuses on the impact of temperature changes on summer phytoplankton communities in Tjärnö Bay, and potential knock-on effect on the filter-feeding mussel Mytilus edulis. We will sample water from 3 locations in 3 replicates: in the bay at the end of the Fjord, in the middle of the islands and outside the bay. Salinity, chlorophyll a content, pH, light intensity, phytoplankton abundance and biomass, nutrients will be measured and analyzed with a PCA to determine the important factors driving differences in abiotic conditions and phytoplankton dynamics in the bay. Part of the water and phytoplankton sampled will be placed in aquarium in order to place them under different temperature (18°C, ambient, +5°C). The experiments will take place over two and a half days at the end of which we will measure again biomass and abundance. Mussels will then be added to the aquariums to record if the change in community has an effect on them. Our results will allow us to better understand what climate change could have as an effect in Tjarnö bay and better anticipate the growing of certain phytoplankton communities whose some might be toxic for marine organisms and humans. It will also give indications on the behaviour of mussels facing these changes and maybe how their distribution could change in the coming years.

Contributors:


  • Virginie Sonnet 
  • Lea Happel 
  • Apolline Samin 
  • Flavia Bollaro 
  • Loïc Van Audenhaege

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sampling Tjärnö Bay

Professor Karim and Lucy after our last deployment, hurray!! Our experiments are finally finished! We were able to deploy BRUV (see our Finding Fish in Tjärnö Bay post for a description :) ) at all of our sampling locations, plus a few bonus ones. We sampled three different habitat types: sandy, muddy/algae, and harbour areas. Map of Tjärnö Bay with our sampling locations At all of our habitats we sampled at a depth of approximately 1.5 meters to assess what animals are typically found in the littoral zone of Tjärnö Bay - the littoral zone is the region of the sea closest to the shoreline. On our final day of sampling we decided to do a few extra deployments at 10 meters to search for species we didn’t find at shallower depths. We’re working on analyzing all our video footage now - stay tuned for an upcoming creature feature post! Justin and Catie setting up the cameras for deployment Since BRUV uses bait to attract fish, we also conducted snorkeling transects at all of ou...
Post a Comment
Read more

The wet lab odyssey begins

The Hunger Games wouldn’t be as majestic and thrilling if it weren’t for the games being held in Panem, a futuristic city where the wealthiest and wisest of all beings control the rest of the districts and shape the lives of the masses. So how do a bunch of marine biologists relate to all of this? Well, since we are superior beings, we have the control over our Panem, the wet lab. Just like the movie, districts are our holding tanks and high speed trains are water flows cascading towards the hottest district, where all our competitors await for their chance to be the next Katniss. Arduino, a kind of motherboard to which it’s possible to attach a series of different sensors and switches was used to regulate seawater temperature in our world of two districts: the hot and the cold districts. Our main goal was controlling the temperature in the tanks where our shrimp were kept overnight. This was sort of complex as we needed to have warm baths of running seawater at constant temperatur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Moving day and other incidents

Dear snailings! Since our last post, a few days have passed (weekends are not a thing for us) and we can´t wait to tell you what has happened. The Arduino Incident… Lukas feeling proud after the successful Arduino installation As you remember from our first blogpost, Robyn and I (Lukas) built our own data logging device with Arduino technology to document water temperature, sea surface level and light exposure in the field. So, after two days of wiring, testing, more wiring and more testing, we were finally able to deploy the logging station in a (almost) waterproofed box in an intertidal pool on the rocky shore of nearby Saltö island. Lukas and Robyn securing the Arduino device using an incredibly wide range of physics knowledge – ropes and heavy rocks The trip to deploy the device became an adventure as the sea was very choppy. Returning to the device the next day gave an unforeseen surprise. Due to the adverse weather conditions, seawater entered the box and caused a...
Post a Comment
Read more