SITES AquaNet

This summer, as part of SITES AquaNet, lake mesocosm experiments at SITES stations Erken and Svartberget were set up to tes

Are you interested in participating in a coordinated mesocosm experiment that investigates effects of terrestrial inputs of mineral particles on carbon and nutrient transformations, food web dynamics and metabolism across lakes?

From November 10–12, the SITES Secretariat, Station Managers, Thematic Program Leads, and representatives from all SITES stations gathered in Umeå for a three-day meeting dedicated to collaboration, knowledge sharing, and strategic planning.

The meeting opened with updates from the nine SITES research stations, highlighting ongoing projects, recent developments, and future plans across the stations.

Many Swedish lakes have become greener and browner over the past century, largely due to human activities such as land use change and modern forestry. These changes are likely to have major consequences for lake ecosystems, yet many questions remain unanswered. To help close this knowledge gap, Magnus Huss (SLU, Uppsala) and Karin Nilsson (SLU, Umeå) are investigating how forest fertilizers and dissolved organic matter (DOM) leaking from soils affect plankton communities in Swedish lakes.

Are you interested in conducting mesocosm experiments on lakes? SITES AquaNet provides a standardized infrastructure for running mesocosm studies across various lakes. This system features floating platforms with mesocosm enclosures, automatic sensors linked to a data-logging system, and handheld sensors for precise measurements. In this video you can find more information about SITES AquaNet!

Busy September at Svartberget Research Station!

From 19th to 26th September, 30 PhD students from 7 countries arrive to Vindeln for the Watershed Ecology and Biogeochemistry course 2024. Over six intense days, students participated in presentations, poster discussions, and field visits, enhancing their understanding of key topics such as:

The run-off scenario mesocosm experiment was set-up 5 times in a total in three lakes: in Bolmen and Erken in the summer of 2022 and in Bolmen, Erken, and Erssjön in the spring of 2023.

Around 30 people met up at Tiraholm hotel for the annual partner meeting for Bolmen Research station. The partner representatives came from the municipalities around the lake Bolmen, the Regions around the lake, local County Administrative Boards, the hydropower company Statkraft, the Lagan River water council, Bolmen Fishing Association, the Swedish Forest Agency, and SITES.

SITES Thematic Programs are one form of collaboration, connecting individual stations in order to support and enhance research on both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as well as offering open data from long-term monitoring and experimental installations.