Research project
This project aims to study the biological diversity of Swedish lakes, with a primary focus on Arctic lakes to understand how environmental change impact them.
Anthropogenically driven environmental changes, including local pollution and climate warming, are affecting aquatic ecosystems, with profound repercussions on biogeochemical processes, such as greenhouse gaze production, as well as the production of toxins and man-made pollution. Specifically, lakes located in the Arctic and sub-Arctic zones are particularly negatively affected by climate warming because of Arctic amplification. Among other factors, microbial ecosystem services can be modified by environmental perturbations such as climate warming and water deoxygenation.
Although large-scale assessments of lake microbial diversity have been carried out in other countries such as LakePulse (Canada), Lakes380 (New Zealand), there has been no such initiative yet in Sweden.
In this project, we aim to collect water samples from a large number of Swedish lakes using a groundbreaking method to obtain environmental DNA from lake water samples using a waterproof drone outfitted with a water sampler. This will allow for the large-scale analysis of a landscape with minimal effort, compared to carrying boats to remote areas and no disturbance of studied ecosystems. Our first step is to sample lakes around Umeå during the spring 2025 to test the feasibility of the approach and procude the first DNA inventories. Then, we aim to sample 100 lakes near Abisko (West of Torneträsk). Altogether, we aim to obtain a dataset that would help scientists to better comprehend the role of the microbial diversity in Swedish lakes. We also aim to use the results of this project for outreach activities, as it will generate new knowledge from environments familiar to the population of Umeå.
