Peter Lampert, a post-doctoral researcher from the didactics group of Karlstad University’s Biology department will give a seminar entitled Developing Action Competence for Insect Preservation (DACIP): An educational research project promoting young citizens competences to take action for insects. The seminar will be streamed live on zoom on 14 December at 13.15 (CET). You are welcome to join the seminar through https://kau-se.zoom.us/my/kaubiology.
A landlocked Atlantic salmon spawner leaping in the rapids of the River Gullspång, Sweden, just below the hydroelectric dam that has been a complete migration barrier since the early 1900s (Lund Bjørnås et al., 2021)
Associate Professor Johan Watz from Karlstad University’s River Ecology Management Research Group (RivEm) and others have recently published a review article entitled Atlantic salmon in regulated rivers: Understanding river management through the ecosystem services lens. The authors synthesized peer-reviewed literature (related to the effects of hydropower on ecosystem services of Atlantic salmon in regulated rivers throughout its native range) to understand how Atlantic salmon conservation has been addressed within the ecosystem services framework. The paper is published open access and can be found at:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/faf.12628
Professor John Piccolo was involved in two recently published articles and a podcast about ecological sustainability. The two articles and the podcast are part of a larger project on ecological sustainability that John is part of, with researchers from around the globe.
The focus of the research is on sustaining biodiversity in social-ecological systems, and on understanding social and ecological values. Upcoming events include a webinar organized by the Society for Conservation Biology Europe Section https://conbio.org/groups/sections/europe/activities-fall-2021-webinar-series/ And the 2022 European Congress for Conservation Biology (ECCB) in Prague, Czech Republic: https://www.eccb2022.eu/ The network is always interested in developing new partnerships, so feel free to contact John (john.piccolo@kau.se.) if you are interested.
The US Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, and The World Fish Migration Foundation invite you to save the date and register for an exciting upcoming webinar entitled: Removing “Road Dams” in Europe? taking place on 19th January, 2022 from 15:00-18:00 CET.
This is a free, international webinar that will highlight the need and opportunities to improve road and stream crossings to enhance the biodiversity of rivers across Europe!
We invite all river and restoration practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and students, as well as road planning, maintenance, design and construction experts to join!
Confirmed speakers include:
Carlos García de Leaniz of Swansea University, Wales | Topic: An overview of Europe’s current policies and research needs
Bob Gubernick of the US Forest Service, USA | Topic: Stream simulation principles and applications in the USA
Sofia Perä, County Administrative Board of Norrbotten, Sweden | Topic: Culverts in Sweden and lessons from the LIFE REMIBAR project
Joshua Royte, Nature Conservancy Maine, USA | Topic: Opening up headwaters in Maine, USA
Nat Gillespie, US Forest Service, USA | Topic: What is the problem with culverts and road-crossings?
The full program, which includes speakers from both Europe and the USA, will be released in the coming month. Make sure to register so you don’t miss any important updates! We hope to see you there.
Sponsor deals for companies: The webinar is additionally open for sponsorship from 6 companies. At this point, we have 5 spots left. For 1,000 euros, companies can show a 30-second commercial video about how they are involved in culvert replacement or the removal of culverts. The logo of sponsors will be shown on Eventbrite, announcement, and conference program. Please contact herman@fishmigration.org for more information about sponsorships.
Watch Part 2 of the epic aquatic documentary (part of a trilogy) this Sunday, 24 October, 19.00-20.00 on Swedish National TV (SVT2). This epic aquatic trilogy (the first of its kind on Swedish TV) covers three years of filming work by a team of experts. The team while making this documentary in 2019 spent two days with the University of Karlstads’ master course in river Ätran. Find out more on: https://www.svtplay.se/fiskarnas-rike ¨ https://fiskarnasrike.se/
A snapshot of the trilogy on the websites of Fiskarnasrike (left) and SVTplay (right)
In addition to that, there’s another documentary broadcasted on SVT’s “Kalla fakta” next week (Part 3 THE SEA is broadcast on Sunday 31 October, 19.00-20.00 on SVT2) on “eel conservation”. Watch out for Professor Olle Calles (a lecturer at the University of Karlstad and a member of the River Ecology and management research group) answering very important questions concerning eels.
On Tuesday 28 September 2021, Herman Wanningen, a Ductch aquatic ecologist, entrepreneur specializing in fish migration and water management and founder of the World Fish Migration Foundation and initiator of Dam Removal Europe and Global Swimways, will give a seminar on dam removal as an ecological restoration measure of rivers which have been negatively impacted by the construction and operation of dams. The presentation will highlight how European river managers, inspired by a growing movement, are getting ready to restore rivers by removing dams.
Herman Wanningen
The seminar starts at 13.15 and will be streamed live over Zoom. Contact Olle Calles (olle.calles@kau.se) to receive the zoom link to this seminar.
Professor Lutz Eckstein is involved in a new report led by Tommy Lennartsson (SLU) and co-authored by Jörgen Wissman and Jan Olof Helldin (SLU), published by TRIEKOL, a group of scientists dedicated to applied rail and road ecology.
The report summarizes the role of invasive alien plants (IAP) in the context of infrastructure habitats, focusing on the importance of research for the development of measures for the management and monitoring of invasive species. It elaborates on three problem complexes with IAP:
(A) Effects of IAP on biological diversity and the possibility to reach the Swedish environmental objectives;
(B) The role of the organization and activities of the Swedish Transport Administration and of community valuations, laws and rules for the work with IAP; and
(C) The development and evaluation of measures for control of IAP. For each problem complex, a number of specific questions are formulated highlighting critical knowledge gaps that need to be addressed by scientists.
Download the report here: https://triekol.se/project/kunskapsbrister-invasiver/.
Garden Lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus) native to North America has been classified as an invasive species in Sweden. In Sweden, they are mainly distributed in road verges. A group of researchers at Karlstad University led by Prof. Lutz Eckstein has been tasked with finding efficient management strategies to control their spread. The research aims at finding out when the garden lupine can be controlled most effectively. Watch Prof. Lutz Eckstein and doctoral student Elin Blomqvist talk about this research in a video interview as they collect and examine lupines at different stages of development.
Collection of garden lupine for examination. Photo by Dahlia Poignant Khafagi / SVT
Watch the full video here : https://tinyurl.com/mbnjhmh
Two current members of NRRV, Larry Greenberg and Eva Bergman, and two former members, Johnny Norrgård and Pär Gustafsson, have recently published an overview of 15 years of research on the endemic, large-bodied population of landlocked River Klarälven-Lake Vänern population of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).
Large bodied adult Atlantic salmon from Lake Vänern
They highlight the major findings from studies of each of the salmon’s life stages and conclude that the Klarälven salmon population is below carrying capacity. Greenberg et al. (2021) suggest measures to increase the number of spawners and downstream passage success, and they also recommend habitat restoration to compensate for losses from, for example, former log-driving activities. They also discuss the ecological and legislative problems that need to be addressed if one wishes to re-establish salmon in Klarälven’s upper reaches in Norway. Managing, conserving and conducting research on this migratory salmonid population has been challenging not only because of the ecosystems’ large size, but also because there is more than one anthropomorphic stressor involved.
(B) Schematic diagram showing the different phases of the salmon life cycle in relation to the hydropower dams and the different studies undertaken in the River Klarälven – Lake Vänern ecosystem
Professor Larry Greenberg, NRRV, and William Ardren, US Fish & Wildlife Service, have co-edited a special issue on nonanadromous Atlantic Salmon in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. The issue is entitled “Conservation, Ecology, and Evolution of Nonanadromous Atlantic Salmon” and has contributions from experts from North America and Europe, consisting of 13 papers. The papers cover four themes, namely (1) ecology, evolution, and behavior, (2) conservation and management (3) improving hatchery programs and (4) re-introduction efforts. Three of the papers come from NRRV researchers;
Larry Greenberg and William Ardren have written a general overview of the 13 papers in a paper entitled ‘Introduction to “Conservation, Ecology, and Evolution of Nonanadromous Atlantic Salmon”. This can be found at: https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.1139/cjfas-2021-0035
Maximum reported age and maximum fork length for globally distributed populations of nonanadromous Atlantic salmon (A). Closed circles represent an extreme example of the variation observed at these life-history traits with the Ouananiche Beck population from Newfoundland that has a maximum length of 13 cm (B — photo credit Dylan Fraser) and the Gullspångsälven population from Lake Vänern in Sweden that has a maximum length of 108.5 cm (C — photo credit Fredrik Nilsson). Data for this figure are from Hutchings et al. 2019
RivEM – Karlstad University
… 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).
