{"id":910,"date":"2022-08-26T22:39:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T20:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/?p=910"},"modified":"2022-09-01T11:54:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T09:54:01","slug":"skitt-fiske-2-0-extreme-sticklebacking-in-nordland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/2022\/08\/26\/skitt-fiske-2-0-extreme-sticklebacking-in-nordland\/","title":{"rendered":"Skitt fiske 2.0!\u00a0 \u2018Extreme Sticklebacking\u2019 in Nordland"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Marijn Kuizenga<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new summer means a new season for field work! This season we are embarking on a project which aims to characterize mercury contamination in freshwater lakes across Northern Norway and study its effects on three-spined stickleback populations. During the summer of 2022 we are studying sticklebacks from 21 lakes scattered throughout Nordland. The selected lakes brought some unique challenges with them: some were easily reached by car but were a 6+ hour drive from the university; some others were very remote and required hiking; several lakes were in nature reserves or national parks and required extra preparation and permits; some lakes were beachy; some swampy; some mountainous, and all of them were completely new to our team. This made the summer\u2019s goal quite ambitious and exploratory! Welcome to \u2018Extreme Sticklebacking\u2019!<\/p>\n

To tackle this challenge, we recruited a large team consisting of some of our most seasoned \u2018Sticklebackers\u2019 and a large group of enthusiastic volunteers: Joost Raeymaekers, Brijesh Singh Yadav, Thijs Bal, Amalia Mailli, Camela Haddad, Sven Keizer, Diederik Blaauw, Arun Mattanavile Shankregowda, Chinmayi Venkataramegowda, Griffin Goldstein, Alessandra Schnider, Amy Leigh Mackintosh, Thea Saeterdal, and myself (Marijn Kuizenga). To make the task more manageable we divided the lakes up in five separate trips (Fauske, Hamar\u00f8y, Kjerring\u00f8y, D\u00f8nna, and Lofoten) with different team members joining on each of the trips. We are now approaching the end of summer and are happy to report on three rather successful trips to 12 out the 21 lakes!<\/p>\n

The first round of sampling took place at three beautiful lakes near Fauske. In a matter of two days Amalia, Brijesh, and Marijn collected samples from the three lakes to kick-off the field campaign.<\/p>\n

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Not all the lakes were easily accessible and required some extra scheming and careful route-planning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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But this sure brought us to some fabulous spots! Left: our luxurious lakeside sampling facilities at Kvitblikkvatnet. Top right: Brijesh and Amalia (in the distance) checking out our sampling location at Straumvatnet. Bottom Right: Marijn taking water quality measurements at Vallvatnet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And despite, at times, being plagued by mosquitos, horse flies, and empty traps, the first fish of the season were caught!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But there was no time to sit around and celebrate for too long! Because Brijesh and Marijn immediately continued onwards to Hamar\u00f8y to sample the next four lakes. Here the weather took a turn for the worse and the lakes were more inaccessible, but high catch success and scenic sampling locations kept our spirits high!<\/p>\n

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Here spotted among the traps of beautiful Fjellvatnet: A wild Brijesh displaying typical stickleback hunting behavior.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Top and bottom left: Our first encounter with stickleback infected with the parasite Schistocephalus solidus! Top right: We also collected samples of the water, sediment, and a selection of prey items. Here Brijesh has exchanged his usual office desk and chair for a more scenic setup to carefully (and comfortably) sort the prey items collected at Lilandsvatnet Nature Reserve. Bottom Right: our mobile stickleback field station in all its glory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We finished off our time in Hamar\u00f8y with a big hike to access one of the most remote lakes of the season, Straumvatnet. After climbing to the top of a ridge at about 360m above sea level we were rewarded with some nice views before descending the other side of the ridge towards the lake. Two trips down, three to go!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/em>The third stop of the season was Kjerring\u00f8y. Here, Joost, Thijs, Amalia, Brijesh, and Marijn made short work of sampling another five lakes. Despite rainy and windy conditions during the first days of the trip, our sampling efforts paid off! And with a whopping 274 fish caught in the traps overnight, a new catch record was set at Storvatnet in the Strand\u00e5vassbotn Nature Reserve.<\/p>\n

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Team Kjerring\u00f8y! From left to right: Amalia, Thijs, Marijn, and Joost.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Team Kjerring\u00f8y! From left to right: Marijn, Thijs, Amalia, and Brijesh.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Brijesh and his non-stop handnetting in the rain at S\u00f8rvatnet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Top: Joost conquering the rain to check traps and hunt for fish at Ryvatnet. Bottom: At Storvatnet, however, the weather took a sudden turn for the better. And so did our catch numbers! Here some of the \u2018lucky ones\u2019 of the record-breaking 274 fish are being returned into the lake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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With our efforts paying off, it seemed only fair to reward ourselves with some well-deserved downtime every now and then!<\/p>\n

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But it\u2019s not all fun and games! At each site, pre-processing of the water and sediment samples was done as well sorting and counting of the fish and prey items. Back at the cabin, the samples were carefully stored and the fish sacrificed and registered under strict adminstrative supervision of our furry sampling mascot.<\/p>\n

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No fieldwork is complete without some livestock encounters of course\u2026 This friendly herd (bottom two pictures) accompanied us the whole 3 kilometers back from Storvatnet through the marshes and forests of Strand\u00e5vassbotn Nature Reserve.<\/p>\n

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The final day of the trip was spent at F\u00e6r\u00f8yvatnet. This near-pristine lake is located near the shore of Sjunkfjorden in the heart of Sjunkhatten National Park. To access this remote location, we got to hitch a very scenic ride with Morten Krogstad in Nord University\u2019s research vessel Tanteyen. Takk for turen Morten!<\/p>\n

After a short drive back to Bod\u00f8, the third trip of the season came to a successful ending. We are now setting our sights on D\u00f8nna where we will visit an additional five lakes. Three trips down, two to go!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Marijn Kuizenga A new summer means a new season for field work! This season we are embarking on a project which aims to characterize mercury contamination in freshwater lakes across Northern Norway and study its effects on three-spined stickleback populations. During the summer of 2022 we are studying sticklebacks from 21 lakes scattered throughout […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":["post-910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ukategorisert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":976,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions\/976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/landscapegenomics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}