Preliminary results from the 2017 JellyFarm incubation experiment presented at FORAMS2018, Edinburgh

Figure 1: Foraminiferal assemblage from the inner most site Kaldfjord, JellyFarm 2017 incubation experiment.

The International Symposium on Foraminifera in 2018 (FORAMS2018, Edinburgh) is a conference specifically for foraminifera specialists from around the world. Foraminifera are single celled protists with a calcite shell that are known to reflect both natural and human induced environmental changes  (Figure 1, picture of foraminifera from the experiment). They are therefore a useful tool to assess the response of the benthic ecosystem to changing carbon sources like jelly-fish blooms.

During the FORAMS 2018 symposium preliminary results from the JellyFarm 2017 experiment where presented. At the moment the focus has been on the inner and outer part of the fjord as these two locations showed a great difference in Total Organic Matter (TOC) and water depth. The two factors seem to have produced markedly different foraminiferal assemblages (the various species that exist in a particular habitat) with slightly lower diversities (number of different species that are represented in a given community) at the outer most location.

For each location 4 box cores where collected from which 3 incubation chambers where collected for the different jelly-fish concentrations; respectively no jelly-fish, low concentration of jellyfish and a high concentration of jelly-fish. The diversities calculated for each jelly concentration showed that when no jelly-fish was added but only food for the foraminifera the diversities where highest, i.e. a high number of species within the community.  The diversities dropped once a concentration of jelly-fish was added to the chambers, the concentration of jelly-fish detritus does not seem to play a role. The next step is to see if these underlying factors affected the uptake of food by foraminifera, i.e. how jelly-fish detritus affects their ability to process organic material.