Image: Joakim Ahlgren
Research project The Aquatic Fluorescence suite is equipment that can be used for basic and applied marine and freshwater photobiology research. This includes aquatic biophotonics, photophysiology, biogeochemistry, environmental change, ecotoxicology, algae biotechnology and numerical ecology. As far as we know, this equipment will be the first of its kind in Sweden and provide one of the greatest opportunities in Europe for advanced analysis of aquatic photodynamics.
Photosynthesis supports almost all underwater life. Aquatic plants and algae therefore have local to global importance: they account for more than half of all carbon fixed by photosynthesis, support a vast range of ecosystems in lakes, rivers and oceans, drive an ever-growing range of bioengineered technologies and provide a wealth of ecosystem services. The research associated with these organisms is thus naturally broad, spanning molecular biology to bioengineering. Applications are equally diverse from aquatic conservation to energy innovation. This broad suite of disciplines means there are instrumental challenges for a multidisciplinary understanding of photosynthesis which we will overcome by harnessing a suite of fluorometry instrumentation specifically tuned for aquatic research.
