On Tuesday, 6th December at 14:15 CET, David Aldvén from Vattenfall AB will be giving a seminar about Hydropower and biodiversity. This will be live over zoom (https://kau-se.zoom.us/my/kaubiology) and on KAU Campus in Room 5F416. You are all invited to attend.
Louis Addo (a Ph.D. student in Biology at Karlstad University) will be giving a talk about the interaction of salmonids fry with changing flows. The talk will be a presentation of a recently published article entitled “Growth and mortality of sympatric Atlantic salmon and brown trout fry in fluctuating and stable flows” by Louis and others from the River Ecology and Management Research group working with salmonids ecology and IBM’s.
You are invited to join this seminar live on zoom and at the biology department at Karlstad University (5F416) at 13:15 CET on 6th December 2022. To join in via zoom use the link: https://kau-se.zoom.us/my/kaubiology
Caroline Durif , a Research Scientist from Bergen University, Norway will be giving a seminar live on Karlstad University campus (Room: 21A349) and also over zoom via https://kau-se.zoom.us/my/kaubiology . The seminar entitled Eel magnetic orientation will start at 15:15 CET on Thursday 17th November 2022. You are all invited to attend this seminar for free. See you there!
Jeff Marker, Eva Bergman, Lutz Eckstein, and Denis Lafage of Karlstad University have recently published a paper titled “Forested riparian buffer environmental variables are more important than size for species functional diversity in production forests” in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.
In their paper they explore the effects of forested buffers along small streams on the links between diversity and ecosystem function using spiders and vascular plants. They collected over 150 species of spiders and 85 species of vascular plants in Swedish production forests to test their hypothesis that larger forested buffers around streams would result in high levels of functional diversity. Surprisingly, the forested buffers had no effect on system functional diversity or functional redundancy for spiders or vascular plants. However, taxonomic diversity was found to drive functional diversity and the authors suggest that forest managers work to conserve high levels of taxonomic diversity through proper forested buffer maintenance.
This paper is open access and can be found on https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2022.120599
On Tuesday 8 November, at 13:15 CET Jenni Prokkola from Academy Research Fellow, Natural Resources Institute (Luke), Finland will be giving a talk about The energetics of life-history variation in Atlantic salmon: a question of resource allocation and genetic constraints. Pioneering genetic association studies have identified genomic regions strongly linked to the enormous life-history variation found in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Jenni will describe how she uses genomic prediction in follow-up empirical studies to test if life history variation in salmon may be constrained by whole animal and tissue-level energetic pathways.
The seminar will be held at Karlstad University House 21, room 349, and also live on zoom at (https://kau-se.zoom.us/my/kaubiology). You are invited to physically attend this seminar at Karlstad University campus building 21 or live on zoom.
On 15 November, Isolde Puts will be giving a talk on her work in northern lakes. She conducted her Ph.D. at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science (EMG) at Umeå University and improved our understanding of how primary production in lakes is affected by climate change. Isolde looked at both direct and indirect effects of climate change on free-floating and attached algae production, and investigated the implications of changes in pelagic-benthic algae production for energy- and nutrient transfer to higher consumers in lakes. In future projects, she’ll broaden her view a bit as she will include coastal linkages in her work.
Find Isolde’s publications here and attend the seminar in on campus (room 21A349) or on Zoom (https://kau-se.zoom.us/my/kaubiology) at 13:15 CET on 15 November.
Louis Addo (Doctoral Student), Mahboobeh Hajiesmaeli (Post-doctoral Researcher), John Piccolo (Professor) and John Watz (Associate Professor in Biology) all from the River Ecology and Management Research Group RivEM, Department of Environmental and Life Sciences at Karlstad University have recently published a paper entitled “Growth and mortality of sympatric Atlantic salmon and brown trout fry in fluctuating and stable flows” with the journal Ecology of Freshwater Fish.
In their paper, they explore the potential effects of hydropeaking or short-term regulated rivers on the growth and mortality of sympatric Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and brown trout (Salmo trutta) at the fry life stage.
This paper is open-access and can be found at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eff.12685
On 25 October 2022 at 13.15 CET over zoom, Koh Hasegawa will be giving a talk about the ecological effects of invasive salmonids and interactions between hatchery-reared and wild fish in Japan.
Koh Hasegawa is a Fish Conservation Ecologist working with the Salmon Research Department of the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency. Koh in his talk will answer questions about what brown trout do in the urban streams in Sapporo and whether it is a good idea or not to let hatchery-reared and wild population of salmon mix. You are welcome to join this seminar over zoom on Tuesday 25 October at 13:15 CET via https://kau-se.zoom.us/my/kaubiology
On 13 September, Aafke Schipper will be giving a seminar with the title Biodiversity modelling for policy support to our department. Her work centers on the development and application of large-scale biodiversity assessment models to understand past and future effects of anthropogenic activity on biodiversity globally, and she works on a wide range of taxa to do so.
As an assistant professor at Radboud University and researcher at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Aafke also informs policymakers on both the national and international level. Read about some of her current and future work on https://www.globio.info/ and https://www.ru.nl/en/research/research-news/vidi-grants-for-research-into-freshwater-fish-geometry-our-sense-of-smell-and-more, and join us for the first autumn seminar on Tuesday 12 September at 13:15 CEST via https://kau-se.zoom.us/my/kaubiology!
Emil Nordström (former Master student), together with Lutz Eckstein and Lovisa Lind published a paper studying decomposition along the bog-forest edge (also known as “lagg”) using the tea-bag-index.
This paper, which was based on Emil Nordström’s Master thesis, is published in the journal Ecosphere (https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4234). The authors studied the mass losses (90 days) of green and rooibos tea bags placed across the bog-forest transition of six bogs in Dalarna (Sweden). Three 20-m transects, each containing seven pairs of tea bags, were buried across the margins of each bog, centered at the edge of the Sphagnum moss (Figure 1). The results confirmed their hypothesis, showing a strong edge effect across the bog-forest transition (Figure 2).
Soil moisture levels had the strongest negative effects on decomposition rates. In comparison to soil moisture, pH and temperature had minor or no significant effects. Plants indicative of low decomposition rates included Vaccinium oxycoccos, Drosera rotundifolia, and Sphagnum species. In contrast to other studies, the authors did not find an increase in decomposition with increased species richness among the studied bog ecosystems.
In conclusion, there is an edge effect on decomposition and maintaining or restoring the hydrology of a peatland is the most important factor for continued carbon storage. A rough estimation of an areas’ decomposition rate appears to be possible based on its vegetation.
… is a research group associated to the subject of Biology and the Department of Environmental and Life Sciences at Karlstad University, Sweden. We conduct both basic and applied research on human impact on river ecosystems, and how this impact can be minimized.
In Swedish the research group is called Naturresurs Rinnande vatten (Acronym NRRV, hence the url nrrv.se).
