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).