Informes y proyectos de VIRTUE

MARITIME BIODIVERSITY - How Water Condition Affects Organisms in Saline Water. Emmelie Gustavsson, Hvitfeldtska gymnasiet, Gothenburg, SWEDEN (2010)
Emmelie participated in the regional Young Researchers Exhibition 2010 in Gothenburg, and was one of the projects that was selected for the Swedish National competition for young researchers.
Once there, Emmelie went to the final and received a scholarship for the EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) in 2010 in Lisbon.
To be able to understand the aquatic life, it is of great significance to comprehend the internal abiotic processes of the sea. Thus, the levels of oxygen, nitrate and phosphate were measured via spectrophotometry in this study. An experiment consisting of two VIRTUE racks was carried out in  order to investigate whether ecological communities differ when exposed to different aquatic environments. The VIRTUE racks were placed at two different aquatic environments. One rack was exposed to waves, placed at the inflow of the harbor. The second rack was placed inside the harbor, protected from waves. The racks were left for organisms to inhabit, and species composition checks were performed weekly. Sessile organisms tended to settle down in the harbor where there is plenty of nutrition without having to move to find food. In general, fewer species, but higher numbers of each species were found to live inside the harbor compared to the inflow. This might be due to natural selection.