Anissa Bengattat (middle), together with Rachel Prokopius (left), exchange student from Northern Kentucky University, and Elio Bottagisio (right), master student from France, doing fieldwork in the stream Rannån.

In April 2018, Anissa Bengattat from France visited Karlstad University and did an internship with NRRV. Here she writes about her weeks in Sweden.

Hej där!

I’m Anissa Bengattat, a French student in HND ‘Management and Protection of Nature’ in a town located in France, named Vic-en-Bigorre. As a practical training, I have been doing my three-weeks internship at Karlstad University with the Ecology and Conservation Biology program.           

During these weeks, I have learned vastly about different aspects of  freshwater ecology.  My main mission has been to collect, sort, identify and archive macro-invertebrates, collected in the field, in the freshwater stream Rannån. With the help of Richard Durtsche, guest-professor from the USA, and his student Rachel Prokopius, I managed to follow a project from the start to the end.

I have tested digital imaging of the identified invertebrates, and I have seen the calorimetry process, used in order to make links with the fishes‘ energetics consumption.

 I have also been in the stream aquarium laboratory to participate in some interesting experiments. First, I have learned about the whole fishes respirometry system, made up by R. Durtsche, where we studied oxygen consumption for brown trout. Then, I’ve learned about Karl Filipsson’s experiments about climate change effects on predation on brown trout. Their behaviour, linked to the temperature and the presence or not of burbot, and how to identify it scientifically by extracting trouts‘ RNA.

 Finally, I have attended master classes for these three last weeks, which consolidated my idea to do a bachelor after my HND, and then a master, if possible, abroad.

This internship wasn’t only about studies to me, it was also about meeting new people in another country with a different way of living, and a different way of teaching. It was about making concrete links in my mind between how much I still have to learn, and how to develop into an accomplished scientist.

Thanks to John Piccolo who set up my internship, thanks to the international office of Karlstad university which helped, and thanks to Elio Bottagisio, the French master student who told me about this program. And finally, thanks to all the people who taught me things during this internship,  Richard Durtsche, Rachel Prokopius, Olle Calles, and Karl Filipsson. I hope to come back.

Job: Project assistant

Posted by Karl Filipsson | Jobs

River Klarälven, Värmland, Sweden

A position as project assistant (6 months with possible extension) in NRRV is open for application at Karlstad University. The position involves fieldwork, laboratory work and data analysis within the fields of fish ecology, stream ecology and river rehabilitation.

Read more and apply for the position here, last day of application is 7 May 2018.

In the beginning of March, John Piccolo from Karlstad University, and Haydn Washington (University of New South Wales), Helen Kopnina (Hague University of Applied Sciences) and Bron Taylor (University of Florida) published the paper Why conservation scientists should reembrace their ecocentric roots” in the scientific journal Conservation Biology. In the article impact statement the authors say that “ecocentrism, the recognition of intrinsic natural vaule, is and should continue to be a vital element of biodiversity conservation”.

You can access the paper here.

Conservation biology is concerned with maintaining the rich biodiversity of Planet Earth. Over the past 50 years scientists have come to recognize that humans are the driving force behind an unprecedented loss of biodiversity. Conservation scientists work for social and ecological justice for a sustainable future of human and non-human life on Earth. The ecosystem services that nature provides for humans is what sustains us – food, clean water, recreation and cultural values. Ecosystem services provide a powerful justification for nature protection, but many people believe that we need to also look more deeply to recognize nature’s intrinsic values. A new peer-review journal, The Ecological Citizen, is dedicated to publishing research on ecocentrism, “Striving for harmony with the rest of nature”.

http://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/

 

John Piccolo from Karlstad University has been contributing to a research network in publishing articles related to ecocentrism and conservation ethics. You can read more about this work here:

http://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/article.php?t=why-ecocentrism-key-pathway-sustainability

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-018-9711-1

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1617138117300742

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/article/if-we-want-a-whole-earth-nature-needs-half-a-response-to-buscher-et-al/27ACE7EBAA074C875C4F16B1BD05F12B

 

The online “statement of commitment to ecocentrism” has been signed by a number of well-known ecologists and conservationists including Jane Goodall, David Suzuki, Ann and Paul Erhlich, Herman Daly, David Ehrenfeld, Michael Soulé, Holmes Rolston, Sarah Darwin, Reed Noss, and J. Baird Callicott.

You can read more about and sign the statement of commitment to ecocentrism here.