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| 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.
