NEWS Ecosystem ecologist Anne Deininger won the prize for the best poster at the yearly staff conference at the Chemical Biological Centre, KBC.“I am of course very happy that I won a prize for my poster! The KBC-days were a good opportunity to get input from researchers outside my field, and it’s nice to be acknowledged for the hard work I put into my research and presenting it”, she says.
The hypotheses and the message of Anne Deininger’s poster were clear, straight forward and short. She also added some illustrative pictures to show the ecosystem she is working in.
“I am lucky my experiments were conducted in a very beautiful landscape, with scenic lakes surrounded by boreal forests. My motivation was to make a poster that is easily understandable also for scientists not working in my research area. The aim of the KBC-days is to share ideas between disciplines and I hope that I succeeded with this,” says Anne Deininger.
She has been a PhD student at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science for three years. Originally, she comes from Munich, Germany.
In her project, Anne Deininger investigates the role of nitrate in lake food-webs in the boreal zone. Nitrate loads to these ecosystems are increasing through anthropogenic activities such as fossil fuel combustion, fertilization and forestry. However, as unproductive boreal lakes have received very little nitrate naturally up until now, it is crucial to investigate how this ecosystem will respond once nitrate inputs increase in the near future.
“So far, we know that phytoplankton in these lakes are very sensitive to increased nitrate levels, and phytoplankton abundance increases once they receive this limiting nutrient. However, there are no large-scale studies looking at whole-lake responses and we also don’t know what is happening on the consumer level once resources increase. With these whole-lake nitrate fertilization experiments conducted during my PhD, I hope to fill these gaps and help to develop a better understanding of food webs in boreal, unproductive lake ecosystems”, says Anne Deininger.
Six departments and two research units at Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Umeå form one large multidisciplinary research centre: The Chemical Biological Centre, KBC. Around 800 people work here. The scientific coordinator is Professor Per Gardeström.
The yearly KBC conference is an opportunity for the staff to exchange knowledge, to network professionally, and to socialize. This year around 350 people signed up for the conference that took place 10-11 November.
Photo: Eva-Maria Diehl
Editor: Ingrid Söderbergh