Dr. Kim Vane from the Alfred Wegener Institute joins us this week for our weekly seminar, presenting "Tracing the specific sources of food web productivity in the Arctic Ocean"
TEASER:The Arctic Ocean is one of the most rapidly changing ecosystem in the world due to increasing seawater temperatures, and subsequent declining sea-ice coverage. As a result, the Arctic phytoplankton community composition is changing with Atlantic species expanding into the Arctic Ocean and blooming under the marginal sea-ice zone. The effect of changing phytoplankton communities on the Arctic food web is unknown due to the limited insight into which phytoplankton clades are supporting the biomass in the food web. Recent developments in the application of carbon stable isotopes of essential amino acids have demonstrated the ability to make a direct link between specific phytoplankton groups and higher trophic levels. This direct link is enabled by the essential amino acids that can only be synthesised by primary producers and thus animals directly assimilate these biomolecules into their tissues with negligible changes to the carbon isotopes. Essential amino acids are thus uniquely suited to quantify the contribution of important phytoplankton clades to the biomass in the Arctic food web, and assess the influence of environmental changes.
Learn more about Dr. Vane's research here: Kim Vane - AWI
Welcome!
