Thursday 14 December 2017

http://rdcu.be/A7wk

Nature Scientific Reports publishes work by the JellyFarm team, that provides the first empirical evidence of a energy pathway between jellyfish carcasses and a commercially exploited shellfish species (Nephrops norvegicus).  

Monday 13 November 2017

WHALE



The EFFECTS project is in collaboration with WHALE, another Fram Centre Flagship project under the Fjord and Coast Research Area (Effects of climate change on sea and coastal ecology in the north).  


WHALE is led by Angelika Renner from IMR and investigates the impacts of massive winter herring abundances on the Kaldfjorden environment. 


Zoe Walker works on the WHALE project and has contributed the following blog post to describe her work in Kaldfjorden.  



Zoe Walker in action in the field for the WHALE project

I'm a Canadian student on exchange in Tromsø (UiT) from the University Centre of the Westfjords in Isafjörður, Iceland. I am working on my Masters thesis as part of the WHALE project, specifically looking to improve the conceptual understanding of how the migratory shift in Norwegian Spring Spawning Herring to Kaldefjord and the presence of whales is influencing pelagic-benthic coupling and biogeochemistry in the fjord ecosystem during polar night. I am utilizing sediment traps, suspended water samples, zooplankton nets, CTD profiles, and local hydrography to create a baseline for the vertical suspended biomass flux in the area during polar night. I began sampling in early October 2017 and will continue through to early February 2018 to explore how the high abundance of animals affects sedimenting matter in the absence of solar radiation, and what impacts that may have for local fisheries and aquaculture.

EFFECTS. Examining the Role of Fish-Falls on Ecosystem processes.

The EFFECTS project is investigating the role of herring carcasses, arriving in Kaldfjorden (close to Tromsø) due to recent shifts in migration patterns of herring in northern Norway on seafloor processes. Input from herring carcasses will be compared with the effects of inputs from aquaculture and jellyfish blooms studied in JellyFarm. 

This research is important to achieve the sustainable management of economic activities in coastal areas that requires a strong understanding of natural and anthropogenic impacts on the ecosystems.  EFFECTS will combine the use of underwater technology, hydrography and biogeochemical modeling and field sampling.


 Underwater camera technology (Anonyx camera lander) and yo-yo drop camera. 





EFFECTS is in collaboration with two other Fram Centre Flagship proposals weShare (Martin Buiw, IMR) and WHALE (Angelika Renner, IMR).  The project involves research collaborartion from Akvaplan-niva, Institute of Marine Research (IMR), Heriot-Watt University (UK), Norsk Institutt for vannforskning (NIVA) and the National Oceanography Center (UK). 







Monday 23 October 2017

JellyFarm Project presented in PhD presentation at the annual Norske Havforskeres Forening meeting 18-20th of October 2017.

 Introducing the audience to the JellyFarm project.
 Where our samples for the 2017 experiment come from.
 Explaining the experimental set up.
 The treatment the chambers received.
 What we will hopefully gain from the 2016 and 2017 experiment.
I would like to thank Norges Havforskeres Forening on behalf of the JellyFarm project group for the opportunity to present our research.

Friday 22 September 2017

Jelly Farm Incubation Experiments

Jellyfish (Periphylla periphylla) weighed to be added to benthic cores

Cores transported to microprofiling climate controlled room 

Microprofiling is conducted right before core processing begins

Elisabeth ready for the next core!  

Hege and Elisabeth core slicing

Anouk removes samples for microbiology analysis

The Jelly Farm team enjoying the beautiful views from the Akvaplan niva Barents Sea Lab, Kvaløya. 

Tuesday 19 September 2017

JellyFarm Field Work Kaldfjorden, Troms


Monday 4th to Thursday 7th of September the JellyFarm team were out in Kaldfjorden to collect box core sediment samples for benthic core incubation experiments. 



 The boat on its way to location.

 Hector and Carl working hard to open the box core.

Experiment chambers were carefully pushed into the sediment in box core and sent over to the lab for further incubation experiments.

Silvia and Anouk slicing sediment cores for further chemical, foraminifera, 13C and nematode analysis.


Despite some difficulties with coarse and rocky seabed several Gemini cores were also collected in Kaldfjorden.



Kaldfjorden Sediment Trap Deployment

Sediment traps were deployed in the Arctic fjord Kaldfjorden, Kvaløya, Tromsø on the 8th September 2017 by Andrew Sweetman (Heriot Watt University), Marta Cecchetto (Heriot Watt University), Hege Vågen (University of Oslo) and Carl Ballantine (Akvaplan Niva).  

Traps will remain in the fjord for 10 months were they will measure the flux of organic material to the seafloor close to a fish farm and in a control site in the center of the fjord.  

Andrew, Carl and Marta heading out to deploy the first sediment trap

Preparing the trap mooring 

Preparing the acoustic releases for the sediment trap mooring deployment

Thursday 8 June 2017

Looking back at the lab experiment performed at IRIS (Stavanger) in September 2016, looking forward to work with this team on the next experiment in September 2017

WP2: Quantifying interactions between  aquaculture and jelly-falls on organic matter cycling in fjord sediments. 

Sediments collected in Hardanger fjord at two different depths, in the vicinity and at a distance from a fish farm were collected and incubated in the lab at IRIS.

Periphylla periphylla being thawed, weighed and cut before addition to the sediment cores.

Sediment cores incubated in the lab. Andrew Sweetman adding 13C labelled algae before the addition of P. periphylla.

 Andrew Sweetman measuring oxygen profiles in the sediment of experimental cores.


Slicing, measuring, mixing, subsampling and sieving sediments at the end of the experiment.

Team work at its best!

Monday 29 May 2017

JellyFarm Meeting, Oslo, 22nd to 24th May


The JellyFarm Project team in Oslo for the 2017 JellyFarm Meeting. 

The JellyFarm Project team in Oslo for the 2017 JellyFarm Meeting.

Dr Siliva Hess (University of Oslo) presents results on foraminifera communities in a jellyfish dominated and a fish-dominated fjord in Western Norway
Lars Birkeland Sjetne (University of Olso) presented results from his masters thesis examining organic carbon accumulation from fish farms in Hardangerfjorden, using a micro paleontological and geochemical study.  

Dr Dan Jones (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton) presented results from work package 5 examining depth effects on jellyfall scavenging dynamics. 

Dr Paul Renaud (Akvaplan Niva) coordinates planning for experiments in the Fall to examine the combined effect of organic input from aquaculture and jellyfalls on benthic biogeochemistry in Kaldfjorden, North Norway. 

Tuesday 28 March 2017

Flume Update 28th March


Mimic jellyfish have been introduced to the experimental flume system.  Along with the oxygen scavenger irrigation system we will now examine the impact of fallen jellyfish carcasses on oxygen flux in the benthic boundary layer.

Microsensor measuring oxygen between mimic jellyfish carcasses

Mimic jellyfish in the flume 



Monday 13 March 2017

JellyFarm Flume Experiments March 2017


Experiments are continuing for JellyFarm Work Package 3 at NIOZ, Yerseke, carried out by Kathy Dunlop, Tjeerd Bouma and Andrew Sweetman with the advice and assistance of Anton Tramper and Dick Van Oevelen.  

In 2016 we successfully collected data to study the physical impacts of jelly-falls on benthic boundary layer flow dynamics.  In 2017 we are further this investigation by looking into the impact of jelly-falls on Benthic Boundary Layer oxygen dynamics.  

Kathy working with oxygen microsensors in the NIOZ flume, Yerseke.