On Tuesday October 30, Peter Hambäck, Professor at Stockholm University, will give a seminar at Karlstad University titled “Spatial subsidies for shore-line spiders: evidence from molecular gut content analysis and stable isotopes”. The seminar will start at 13:15 in room 5F416, everyone who wants to are welcome to attend the seminar.

Daniel Nyqvist, Jonas Elghagen, Marius Heiss and Olle Calles recently published the article “An angled rack with a bypass and a nature-like fishway pass Atlantic salmon smolts downstream at a hydropower dam” in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research.

In the abstract, the authors write:

Hydropower dams disrupt longitudinal connectivity and cause fragmentation of river systems, which has led to declines in migratory fish species. Atlantic salmon smolts rely on intact longitudinal connectivity to move downstream from rearing habitats in freshwater to feeding grounds at sea. Smolts often suffer increased mortality and delays when they encounter hydropower plants during their downstream migration. Currently, there are few examples of downstream passage solutions that allow safe and timely passage. We assessed the performance of two passage solutions at a hydropower dam, namely, an angled 15-mm rack with a bypass and a large nature-like fishway. The performance of these new fish passage solutions was evaluated by tracking radio-tagged Atlantic salmon smolts as they encountered the facilities. The radio-tagged smolts passed the dam 9.5 h after release (median) and exhibited a dam-passage efficiency of 84%, with passage rates increasing with body length. Fish passage occurred through both the rack bypass and the naturelike fishway. The passage efficiencies were 70–95% for the rack bypass and 47% for the nature-like fishway. The new fish passage facilities resulted in improved passage conditions at the site, confirming that angled racks with bypasses as best practise solutions for downstream passage, but also that large nature-like fishways may act as downstream passage routes for salmon.

Access the paper here, or contact any of the authors.

A Dolly Varden trout (Salvelinus malma).

On Tuesday 16 October, Johan Watz from Karlstad University will give a seminar titled: “Report from a postdoctoral research stay in Sapporo and results from a field experiment: Condition-specific competition between two Japanese charr species”. The seminar will start at 13:15 in room 5F416 at Karlstad University. Everyone who wants to are welcome to attend the seminar.

Amy Newsom on lake Alstern.

In August and September 2018, Amy Newsom from Germany visited Karlstad University and did an internship with NRRV. Here she writes about her months at Karlstad University.

“Having spent a year at Karlstad University as an exchange student in 2017 in the framework of my bachelor program “Environmental and Sustainability Studies” at the Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany, I had already been able to gain a first impression of the university’s biology department, which sparked my interest in freshwater ecology. Consequently, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to join the Naturresurs rinnande vatten Team for a six-week internship in August and September of 2018.

During the weeks I spent at Karlstad University, I was able to work with different researchers, getting to know a variety of projects and greatly extending my previous knowledge on freshwater and riparian ecology, in particular river connectivity. My main aim in this internship was to gain more practical research experience, so I was glad to be able to spend a lot of time both in the lab and in the field. For example, my work included processing raw data on the ventilation rates of young trout to assess differences in metabolism efficiency, counting the eggs of spiders gathered in the field and preparing samples for stable isotope analysis to assess the impact of hydro dams on food web interactions of fish. This was a particularly interesting experience as stable isotope analysis was a new scientific procedure to me, and I was keen to learn more about it. I was also excited to join in some of the field work conducted during my time at NRRV, collecting fish, invertebrates and plankton samples from the lake Alstern and electrofishing in the rivers Mörrumsån and Emån to assess the overall community composition at different sites. I was furthermore able to gain valuable insights into the design of research experiments while accompanying the setting up of an experimental flume in Älvkarleby and the preparation of eel traps in the river Alsterälven. In the time I spent in the office, I was also able to gather more experience in data analysis and scientific writing, both helpful preparations for my upcoming bachelor thesis.

Amy Newsom dissecting a crayfish.

Returning to Karlstad also gave me the opportunity to improve my Swedish, reconnect with old friends and make new contacts, as well as further explore the forests, rivers and lakes in the area that I have come to love so much. My thanks go out to John Piccolo, on whose invitation I was able join NRRV as an intern, the International Offices both in Karlstad and at my home university for helping me with the administrative process, and the German foundation Meifort Stiftung, whose generous support made this internship possible for me. I am also incredibly grateful to all the researchers at the KAU biology department who warmly welcomed me into their team, took the time to introduce me to their work and helped me gain new knowledge and experience, in particular Olle Calles, Rachel Bowes, Larry Greenberg, Denis Lafage, Karl Filipsson, Andrew Harbicht, Lovisa Lind and Niclas Carlsson.”

Amy Newsom and Andrew Harbicht (NRRV-postdoc) electrofishing in river Mörrumsån.

A cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii).

On Monday October 8, Guillermo Giannico, Associate Professor at Oregon State University, will give a seminar titled:Fish Passage and Habitat Restoration: a Priority Setting Approach from Coastal Oregon, U.S.A”. The seminar will start at 13:30 in room 5F322 at Karlstad University. Everyone is welcome to attend the seminar.

Seminars Tuesday 9 October 2018

Posted by Karl Filipsson | Events

A threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), a fascinating animal likely to be mentioned in both talks.

On Tuesday October 9, two seminars will be held at the biology department at Karlstad University.

Adaptive potential and evolutionary responses to climate change: Arctic char and threespine stickleback in GreenlandMichael Hansen, Professor, Aarhus University

Ecological genetics – What’s it about and how can we use it? – Karl Filipsson, NRRV PhD-student, Karlstad University

The seminars will be held in room 5F416 and start at 13:15. Everyone who wants to are welcome to attend the seminars.

Forskare i NRRV har under hösten påbörjat ett projekt inom ett för forskargruppen helt nytt ämnesområde. Det handlar om rörelsemönster hos den spanska skogssnigeln, även kallad mördarsnigel. Mördarsnigeln är en ovälkommen gäst i mångas trädgårdar, där den kan orsaka stor skada genom att äta rent i odlingar och blomsterrabatter. Det är en främmande art i Sverige, som mest troligt har kommit hit när ägg följt med plantor, jord, krukor och annan trädgårdsutrustning.

Frågor om sniglarnas spridningsmönster och koloniseringsförmåga när de väl har kommit till ett område skulle kunna besvaras med hjälp av studien. Till en början diskuterades sniglarna under en fikarast på universitetet, sedan följde att Johan Watz (projektledare) med flera på Karlstads universitet sökte och fick pengar av Kungliga Skogs- och Lantbruksakademien för att genomföra studien.

Nu har ca 50 mördarsniglar i en trädgård i Karlstad märkts med små chip (så kallade pit-tags, samma typ av märkning som används i forskningen om fisk), så att sniglarna kan pejlas och deras rörelsemönster och levnadsvanor studeras.

Tidningen Värmlands folkblad (VF) skrev om projektet måndag 1 oktober, som på flera platser i Karlstad tog plats på löpsedlarna.

Även SVT uppmärksammade studien 3 oktober, och reportaget når du genom att trycka här.