Baltic Sea

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Gold medal to professor Lena Kautsky

Vice-chancellor of the University of Stockholm has decided to distribute the Stockholm University gold medal of the 8th size in ribbon to three persons who in various ways have promoted the University’s activities.

One of these is the BalticSeaWeed blog’s very own Professor Lena Kautsky.

The motivation reads as follows:
“Lena Kautsky, professor of marine ecological botany, is awarded Stockholm University gold medal of size 8 in ribbon for her deep involvement in marine research and education at Stockholm University, in national collaboration on marine environmental issues and sharing of knowledge to the public and decision makers. Her leadership of the Stockholm Marine Research Centre and Asko Laboratory has been a decisive part in the fundamental work resulting in Stockholm University’s new Baltic Sea Centre. ”

The medals will be awarded at the installation ceremony held at City Hall on September 27th.

The BalticSeaWeed blog, swelling with pride, will of course post pictures from the ceremony.

See also university’s website (in Swedish only).

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Seaweed project within BalticSea 2020

Anyone who is interested in the Baltic Sea might have heard of Baltic Sea 2020 Foundation.
Baltic Sea 2020 is a foundation founded by Bjorn Carlson through a donation of 500 million SEK (55 million EUR). The Baltic Sea 2020 Foundation’s assets shouldfund projects that are action-oriented, innovative and helps to improve the knowledge of the Baltic Sea continuously until 2020. The BalticSea 2020 Foundation began its work in 2006 and has to date initiated more than 70 projects, of which 25 are ongoing.

One of these projects is about trying to re-establish bladderwrack inside Björnöfjärden, a bay outside Stockholm. Björnöfjärden is heavily eutrophicated and the water is quite turbid with particles that prevents the light from penetrating. It quickly becomes dark below the surface, so that only a few stands of seaweed survive here. Observant locals have informed us that there was plenty of seaweed in the Björnöfjärd in the past, however.

So, seaweed enthusiasts to the rescue!

Susanne Qvarfordt is ready to establish bladderwrack.

Susanne Qvarfordt is ready to establish bladderwrack.

Susanne Qvarfordt from the environment surveillance company Sveriges Vattenekologer has initiated a project that will examine what factors might prevent the seaweed population from re-establishing in Björnöfjärden.
In addition, she asked the BalticSeaWeed blog to help with our expertise!

So, during the first days of June, we collected fertile tips of bladderwrack. These were sexed (we cut the receptacles and see if they are male or female), so that we would get an appropriate ratio of males and females at each site.

Sexing seaweed is best done with a scalpell and a magnifying glass.

Sexing seaweed is best done with a scalpell and a magnifying glass.

The bladderwrack were made into small beautiful fertile bouquets which were then attached to a grid. These will be placed in the water, floating over a number of concrete plates, and hopefully make new small seaweed babies that can attach itself to the plates.

All is ready for a baby boom!

All is ready for a baby boom!

So, now we have placed three grids in Björnöfjärden and three in nearby Fjällsviks Bay, to see if any of the other actions carried out in Björnöfjärden will affect the seaweeds ability to reproduce.
So, keep your fingers crossed that no one gets caught with their anchor or fish tackle in our beautiful grids, and hope for calm weather at Midsummer full moon so that there will be many wee ones.

Placing a seaweed grid with buoys.

Placing a seaweed grid with buoys.

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Around Gotland

Yessiree! It’s time to jump into the water again!

After a long winter with lots of ice, and a well deserved trip to warmer water, it was time for yours truly to submerge oneself into the cool waters of the Baltic Sea.

Field season 2013 opened on Wednesday 22 May at the scenic island of Gotland, jewel of the Baltic Sea.

For the faithful reader, it comes as no surprise that it was time for the inventory of summer reproducing bladderwrack around this beautiful island, as part of the investigation we made along the mainland coast and Gotland last year (see previous post on Tångbloggen 2012 – A seaweed odyssey).

Gotland is well known by many botanists for its amazing flora, and the orchids certainly fought for space with primroses and lily of the valley along the road as we drove north from Visby up towards our first stop just south of Lickershamn.

Orchis mascula- Early purple orchid

Orchis mascula- Early purple orchid

Unfortunately, I think most people fail to see how beautiful Gotland is below the surface. The clear water and the dense seaweed forests are magically beautiful and are conveniently found at knee-depth in the water. If you do not like to get wet, you can easily experience life below the surface with a pair of high rubber boots or waders and water binoculars.

Our second stop was out on the island Fårö, at Lauter huvud. At the moment it’s a rather low water level in the Baltic Sea. It is caused by the weather and is not unusual this time of year. But it gets a little tricky to swim when you are constantly running aground. It was easier to walk among the rauks and occasionally stick my head under the surface in order to verify single specimens of Fucus. Quite possibly the occasional tourist who stayed at the car park was wondering what we were doing. One is not exactly discreet in a bright red dry suit. Hope I did not destroy too many photographs by emerging between rauks like a jack-in-the-box.

Having swum a little off the cliff edge, where it goes from 0.5 meters deep to 15 meters, we went to today’s third and last site at Östergarn.

Here the waves rolled in with a quiet rhythm, and if I had not been busy counting, I would certainly have fallen asleep, it was so very peaceful. The sun had come out and warmed my back as I floated about. I saw plaice, viviparous eelpout (Zooarces viviparus), stickleback, and Lesser pipefish (Syngnathus rostellatus).

Plattfisken vilar bland tången.

The plaice is resting among the seaweed.

The night was spent at the nice hostel in Hemsedal, which had very comfortable beds.

Thursday morning began with a trip down to the southernmost tip of Gotland, the Hoburg. Here we encountered more nature lovers in the form of a flock of birdwatchers. The species often nests at the southern tips of both Oland and Gotland and is easily recognized by the telescope that is often worn over the shoulder.

I even saw Red-Backed Shrike (Lanius collurio), Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) and a yellow bird that I didn’t recognize.

The sea was calm and the swans that landed some distance away did not attack the red ball splashing around, muttering through a tube (snorkel). It was nice to see that htere were many small juvenile seaweed individuals there. Reproduction last year was apparently very successful. Always a good sign.

Our last stop for a dip was just south of Klintehamn. On the way there we visited the nice naturum center in Vamlingbo for a short break. With coffee in the body, we parked at what must be Gotland’s busiest road, and changed into work clothes.

“When you take off your pants, five cars and a bus will always appear” – Old jungle proverb

It was the only site with lots of bladders on the wrack! One might think that bladderwrack always have bladders, but no! If the site is exposed to strong wave action, no bladders are formed. This is to minimize wave grip, so that the wrack does not get torn off by the waves.

Blåsor på blåstången - inte en självklarhet.

Bladders on the bladderwrack – not always to be expected.

It was plenty of gammarids, prawns and isopods here, and I hope I got a picture of the Lesser Pipefish hiding amongst the seaweed. It was obvious that there is a lot of nutrients coming out into the water as runnof from land. The seaweed had much filamentous algae growing on them. Swimming across it reminded me of a shaggy rug.

After again having fulfilled the jungle proverb (Why?!?) we headed towards Visby and enrolled into the prison. If we get out tomorrow remains to be seen.

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Dissertation time for thesis on Fucus radicans and Fucus vesiculosus

Friday 17th of May is not only the National Day of Norway to be celebrated, but also the doctoral defence of Daniel Johansson.
Daniel has studied at the Sven Loven Centre for Marine Sciences Tjärnö (more commonly known as TMBL) belonging to the University of Gothenburg.

Daniel’s thesis is entitled “Evolution of the brown algae Fucus radicans and Fucus vesiculosus in the Baltic Sea” and contains primarily work from a genetic point of view. There has been a lot of work put into obtaining the genetic identity of both species in order to distinguish Fucus radicans from Fucus vesiculosus, but also to be able to distinguish between different clones of Fucus radicans, which in the Gulf of Bothnia reproduces mostly vegetatively. This is achived by proliferation, small branches that fall off from the parent plant and then attach themselves to new substrate.

Small branches of Fucus radicans have formed rhizoids (sticky threads) that attach to the Petri dish.

Small branches of Fucus radicans have formed rhizoids (sticky threads) that attach to the Petri dish.

Daniel has also compared the ability of proliferation between different clones of Fucus radicans to see if the dominant clone, a female that has been found along 550 km of the Swedish Coast, was better than the other clones.

The defense starts at 14:00 in the Auditorium at Tjärnö, of course we will be there to listen!

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Global interest in Baltic seaweed

Since we launched Tångbloggen, our original Swedish blog about seaweed in the Baltic Sea, we have had over 4000 visitors from 33 different countries around the world.
It is wonderful that there is a global interest in the seaweeds of the Baltic Sea! In order to get a better overview of this interest, we took a picture of the total number of visitors per country today(2nd April 2013).

Dessa länder har besökt Tångbloggen fram till idag (2013-04-02)

These countries have visited Tångbloggen up until today (2nd April 2013)

To further spread the interest and knowledge of the Baltic Sea seaweeds, we are now heading for Bali to participate in the 21st International Seaweed Symposium.

We will of course blog live from the conference so that our followers can get the latest in seaweed research served piping hot, both here and on Tångbloggen (in Swedish).

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World Water Day dip

On Thursday 21st, we sneak started the International World Water Day with a dive outside the water museum Aquaria located on Djurgården, in central Stockholm.

The sun was shining from a clear blue sky and the water was almost three degrees Celsius. Ideal for a dive.

The audience was a primary school class of around thirty VERY interested young children. In order for them to experience what I do, I had kitted up my full-face mask with both a wireless talk communication (Buddy Phone) up to the surface, and an underwater filmcamera, connected by hose to a large TV-screen. The camera was kindly lent to us by SVENTAB. Thank you!

Aquaria

P4 Radio Stockholm was on location and broadcasted live from shore (in Swedish).

A lot of people seemed to think it was madness getting into the water at this time of year. But with a good dry suit (I dive with Ursuit Red-Q and SiTech ring system for dry gloves) and a full face mask, I don’t get as much as a drop of water on me. I was probably the warmest one of all that day. Underneath my drysuit, I wear a thin wool underwear and then a Fourth Element fleec underwear over. Very toasty!

Lena Kautsky managed the surface end of the Buddy Phone and passed on questions from the children. She also told them about how seaweed function like forrests of the sea.

During the dive, I found a lot of beer cans an bottles, seaweed and a treasure chest full of candy!!

Dykare

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Seaweed on the rocks

It is SUCH an advantage to have access to an ice breaking ship when one works with seaweed.
Mid-March is unfortunately not always full of sun, birdsong and warm spring temperatures.
On March 18th, we wrwe out at the Askö laboratory to do a reading of some experiments that have been out in the sea over winter.

Havet the door

With a lilttle help from the ice breaking R/V AURELIA and skipper Eddie, I could reach one of the sites, located just south of the boathouse.

The seaweed has not suffered from the cold winter, but was in good shape. When I lifted the “weedbeds” up onto the ice, lots and lots of animals swam out. Small crustaceans, gastropods and caddis worms a plenty, all of them have spent the winter in the seaweed.

Tång o is

Allthough the visibility in the water is very good this time of year, and the temperature is, well, shall we say refreshing, I can’t help but longing for summer. It is quite a struggle to move large sheets of ice when one is i the water…

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Fucus evanescens

Fucus evanescens, is an introduced species to the Baltic Sea. That means that it did not enter the Baltic Sea by itself, but was brought here, possibly by humans. A piece of seaweed could easily have stuck to an anchor or similar. This is quite common nowadays, where boats unknowingly transport species in their ballast water from one place to another.

More information will follow.

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Fucus serratus – Serrated wrack

Serrated wrack, Fucus serratus, is easily recognized by its serrated edges. In the Baltic Sea we can find serrated wrack along the Swedish coast up to the Gryt archipelago in Östergötland, where the salinity is approximately 7 psu. We have not found any observations of its distribution along any other Baltic countries coastlines. If you know of any such, please let us know.

Serrated wrack (Fucus serratus) on the Swedish coast

Serrated wrack (Fucus serratus) on the Swedish coast

Serrated wrack is sensitive to dehydration and is not as tolerant as i.e. bladderwrack to air exposure. Where we find baldderwrack and serrated wrack living together, the serrated wrack is often found slightly deeper thatn the bladderwrack. Outside the east coasts of Öland and Gotland, for example, there are wonderful forrests of serrated wrack at about 8 m depth.

Serrated wrack thrown ashore by waves often gets a more brown-orange colour before it dries and turns almost black.
In the winter, you can find frost covered seaweed when you walk along the shore.

Frozen Fucus serratus

Frozen Fucus serratus

More information will follow.

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Fucus radicans – Narrow wrack

The scientific name of narrow wrack is Fucus radicans which means that it belongs in the Fucus family, together with bladderwrack, serrated wrack and spiral wrack (Fucus spiralis).

Narrow wrack is recently discovered, since it was long belived to be a dwarf morph of bladderwrack. It is not unusual that organisms are smaller in the low salinities of the Baltic Sea. Using genetic tools, narrow wrack was identified as a new species in 2005. Since then, researchers at Stockholm and Gothenburg University have studied the ecology, reproduction and genetics of the narrow wrack.

Narrow wrack (right) is thinner and more bushy than bladderwrack (left)

Narrow wrack (right) is thinner and more bushy than bladderwrack (left)

Narrow wrack is found along the Swedish coast from Öregrund to Umeå, from around Vaasa area down to Poori/Björneborg on the Finnish coast and around the Estonian island Ösel/Saaremaa (see map under The Baltic Sea fact). Narrow wrack has not been found outside the baltic Sea, as far as we know.

Narrow wrack is clonal, wich means that it reproduces by fragmentation, but it also has sexual reproduction. The individuals that have formed by fragmentation, where small branches from the plant falls off, drift away and then reattach to a rock or boulder, all have the same genetic variation as their “mother” plant. There is one plant in particular that have been very successful along the Swedish coast, where almost 80% of all individuals are one clone.