Algal communities and populations
Algae play significant roles in aquatic
ecology. Besides being main producers of oxygen, which becomes available to
humans and other organisms for respiration, they also provide the food base for
most aquatic food chains. Hence, our research is concerned with the protection
of algae from the impact of environmental pollutants and physical stressors and
with the development of tools to assess effects of stressors to algae. Emphasis
is put on understanding how effects occurring at various levels of biological
organization relate to each other. To that aim basic and applied studies are
carried out combining field studies with microcosm and laboratory experiments.
Stressors considered include metals, engineered nanoparticles
and UV radiation. Projects concerning metal bioavailability
and effects of metals and engineered nanoparticles are carried out in
collaboration with the group of Laura Sigg and Kristin Schirmer.