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Directory entires that have specified Sweden as one of the geographic regions for the project/activity and are included in the AMAP, ENVINET, SAON and SEARCH directories. Note that the list of regions is not hierarchical, and there is no relation between regions (e.g. a record tagged with Nunavut may not be tagged with Canada). To see the full list of regions, see the regions list. To browse the catalog based on the originating country (leady party), see the list of countries.
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Measurements of gamma-radiation in the environment (from ground to cosmos). Radioactivity in Intensive Net is measured on the soil surface at 28 sites in Sweden. The measurements are continuous and sound the alarm if radioactivity increases. Measured is the dose rate of gamma radiation. Radioactivity in Extensive Net is concerned all municipalities in Sweden which has got one instrument for gamma radiation measurement and each county board has got two. Every seventh month they measure radioactivity at two to four predefined spots as reference measurement. Radioactivity in Air is conducted at five stations with air filter sampling and analysis of radioactivity maintained by Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI). Out of these stations Umeå and Kiruna are located in northern Sweden.
Annual measurements of physical, chemical, and biological variables are taken in small to medium sized, mostly minimally disturbed lakes, situated across the country. Of the 108 lakes that are part of the Trend Station Lake monitoring programme, 20 are situated in AMAP area. The main aim of the monitoring programme is to document long-term changes related to global or regional change and human-generated stressors. To complement the Trend Station Lake monitoring programme, national lake surveys provide spatial data needed to determine regional patterns, and coupled with time-series data, changes in surface water quality. The National Lake Survey (the Surveillance Stations, re-sampled stations) programme for lake water quality, started in 2007 and results in data of all Swedish lake conditions. Each year some 800 new lakes are sampled to determine chemical and physical conditions; lakes are resampled at 6 year intevals. 4824 lakes are sampled in the country during a six-year sampling cycle, with 1270 situated in AMAP area. The variables included in the Trend Station Lake monitoring programme include water chemistry, fish, phytoplankton, macrophytes, zooplankton, and benthic invertebrates, whilst the National Lake Survey is focused solely on chemical and physical parameters.
The project investigated small-scale biotic interactions between laminated microbial communities and meiofauna at light-exposed sediment-water boundaries of estuarine lagoons. The production and biological structure of these systems is mainly determined by complex processes at the sediment-water interface which depend on finely scaled patterns, requiring appreciation of how the biota interact within these scales. We tested whether changing light conditions and active emergence of the harpacticoid species Mesochra lilljeborgi and Tachidius discipes are mediated by the activity of benthic oxygenic and anoxygenic phototrophic microbes. Two hypotheses were tested which addresses to the question of causality between changing light conditions and active emergence of the harpacticoid copepods. (1)The harpacticoid copepods T. discipes and M. lilljeborgi will enter the bottom water during daylight when oxygenic photosynthesis of cyanobacteria and eukaryotic algae is blocked and conditions at the sediment-water interface have turned anoxic. (2)Both species will not emerge during dark exposures when transferred to sterilized sediments.
The main objective was to investigate the importance of the sediment as a nutrient source for blooms of nuiscance filamentous algae. Nutrient fluxes from the sediment were hypothesised to be of greater importance in maintaining algal biomass than were nutrients originating from the overlying water column. We aimed to assess the relative importance of algal mats on sediment geochemistry and nutrient release under stillwater and controlled flow conditions. Using nutrient fluxes as a surrogate for ecosystem function, we wished to investigate the role of species richness in maintaining the integrity of nutrient diagenesis. In this context, it is not necessarily the number of species that is important in maintaining nutrient supply to algal blooms, but the contribution individual species make to mediate nutrient release.
The activity pattern is recorded by new techniques of real-time video tracking of the benthic activity. Electronic intelligent sensors allow the time analysis of benthic numeric objects with intensive automated recording sessions. We record the natural behaviour of several animals over 24h cycles. We also look into possible antagonistic behaviour, i.e. how animals feed when they have tubes close to each other and when feeding may occur in the same patches. Comparison is made between active motile surface deposit feeders and tubicolous surface deposit feeders. Activities of Amphiura filiformis, A.chiajei (motile burried Ophiuroids) and Melinna cristata (tubicolous Polychaete) are extracted by image analysis and quantified. Amphiura activity is restricted to its deposit feeding mode and no suspension feeding is present in the experiments. We also examine how addition of phytoplankton to the sediment will affect the feeding activity and if Amphiura and Melinna can locate patches of food. Dynamics of the response to food addition is studied.
To asses the utility of a new range of microelectrode sensors in measuring the flux rates of oxygen and nutrients across the sedimentary diffusive boundary layer and into and through macrofaunal tubes and burrow structures.
Dose-response experiments using 5 different sediment concentrations of fluoranthene (Flu) and pyrene (Py) respectively. Measuring radioactive marked Flu and Py in brittlestars and polychaetes and microbial degradation of Flu and Py in sediment. Also growth rate of brittlestars and polychaetes and determination of regenerationtime of brittlestar-arms.
Deep-burrowing crustaceans – density dependent effects on sediment chemistry Some thalassinidian crustaceans burrow exceptionally deep into the anoxic part of marine sediment where molecular diffusion normally dominates chemical transport. In this study we use tracers and microsensors to monitor the impact of such deep bioturbation. By introducing oxygen as well as advective transport to the buried material a large volume of the sediment is affected by one single burrow, and as animal density increases overlapping effects on sediment chemistry are inevitable. The relationship between burrow density and chemical impact are thus studied and modeled. Combined effect of sediment-associated compounds on marine benthic macrofauna This project investigates sub-lethal effects of complex chemical mixtures in both pristine and contaminated marine sediments. Bioturbated sediment comprises a spatially and temporally dynamic mosaic of redox reactions. By using voltammetric microelectrodes that concurrently measure, in situ, a suite of compounds involved in early diagenesis it is possible to obtain the resolution needed to study such complex and dynamic systems. The combined effects of sediment-associated compounds are primarily studied on two marine mud-shrimps, Calocaris macandreae and Upogebia deltaura. The animals’ behavioral and toxicological responses to dynamic solute matrices and associated (scavenged) anthropogenic heavy metals are studied in boxcore (microcosm) experiments. Particular attention is given to quantifying concentration-response relationships and thresholds, and in identifying physiological mechanisms, with respect to ecologically relevant chemical mixtures. Effects of chemical mixtures on the embryonic development in lobster eggs Here we look at the combined effect of diagenetically generated solutes on the embryos of two decapod lobster species, Homarus gammarus and Nephrops norvegicus. Chemical dynamics in and around egg clutches are studied in detail, using microsensor-technology. Physiological and morphological parameters are monitored to estimate effects on development in embryos exposed to chemical mixtures both in vivo and in vitro. Adult female behavioral response, genetic and ecological differences are also investigated.
The research encompass many various aspects of benthic infaunal processes: effects of faunal bioturbation and irrigation activity in differnet faunal successional stages on sediment chemistry; trapping and transformation of organic matter by different functional groups population interspecific competition effects of oxygen deficiency on benthic habitat succession and infaunal behaviour analysed by in situ sediment profile imaging and in laboratory experimets the importance of infaunal activity and food quality on the fate of organic contaminants chemical communication in amphiurid (brittle-star) populations.
1. Observations of the physics of vertical and open boundary exchange in Regions of Restricted Exchanges (REEs), leading to improved parameterisation of these processes in research and simplified models. 2. Study of the phytoplankton and pelagic micro-heterotrophs responsible for production and decomposition of organic material, and of sedimentation, benthic processes and benthic-pelagic coupling, in RREs, with the results expressed as basin-scale parameters. 3. Construction of closed budgets and coupled physical-biological research models for nutrient (especially nitrogen) and organic carbon cycling in RREs, allowing tests of hypotheses about biogeochemistry, water quality and the balance of organisms. 4. Construction of simplified 'screening' models for the definition, assessment and prediction of eutrophication, involving collaboration with 'end-users', and the use of these models to analyse the costs and benefits of amelioration scenarios.
Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are persistent and lipophilic compounds used as flame retardants in electronic equipment, plastic material and synthetic fibbers among other things. The PBDEs are mainly used as Deca-BDE and Bromokal 70-5DE, a mixture of tetra-, penta- and hexa-BDE. Due to its chemical and physical properties PBDEs, especially TeBDEs, tend to bioaccumulate. PBDEs were first reported in sediments in USA, and in fish from a Swedish river. More recently PBDEs have also been reported in seals, birds, mussels, whales and humans. In this study an SFE-method for rapid analysis of PBDEs in marine mammals was developed. This method was used to determinate the concentrations of these environmental pollutants in Pilot Whale samples caught in the Faroe Islands, Beluga Whales from the Arctic and Polar Bears from Svalbard. Using this method several PBDEs were analysed in the different species. In addition methoxylated PBDEs (Me-O-PBDE) were identified by interpretation of the different mass spectra’s. Of the 209 theoretical possible congeners only a few PBDE seem to accumulate in the environment. Accumulation of PBDE is related to the different chemical properties of the molecule. With the help of multivariate characterisation of a compound class using semi-empirical molecular orbital calculations, literature data and actual experimental measurements, the behaviour of PBDE in the environment can be modelled and predicted. Such models are essential in order to gain more insight in the behaviour of PBDE in the environment.