Nyhet -
First successful winter campaign of the FROST team
A team of scientists from NINA and Akvaplan-niva just carried out the first field campaign for the FROST project, with the full title: "Arctic Freshwater Food Systems: Influence of Warming Winters and Increased Snow Cover". FROST is funded by Nordforsk under the Arctic Sustainability call and brings together a large international team of researchers to study Arctic freshwater food webs during winter in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The Norwegian team is represented by Amanda Poste, Vegar Seljestokken and Narve Stubbraaten Johansen from NINA and Eva Leu and Eirik Haugstvedt Henriksen from Akvaplan-niva.
The Norwegian study location
The project's main study location in Norway is Takvatnet, a large lake located 2 hours drive southeast of Tromsø city. Due to an extraordinarily mild autumn, the ice formation at Takvatnet that usually occurs during November, was very late this year. This delayed the first comprehensive after ice-on winter sampling campaign until early January. During four days at temperatures down to effective -30°C the team took samples of the entire food web from viruses to fish, including setting out fishing nets and collecting benthic samples from the coastal and deeper part of the lake. The ice thickness varied between 16 and 30+ cm – however, the low temperatures challenged sampling procedures and required careful planning and execution of the ambitious activities.
Future sampling
In addition to the sampling that will be continued in the coming months, there are sensors placed in the lake that collect continuous background data on physical and biological parameters. Takvatnet is also included in the Norwegian monitoring program for large lakes (ØKOSTOR) and has been studied extensively by researchers from UiT – The Arctic University of Norway that has a field station by the lake. The FROST project is co-led by Milla Rautio from Canada and Kimmo Kahilainen from Finland. More info can be found here: https://www.frost-lakes.com/
