The experimental portion of this work was completed July 2018. Work has been presented at several national and international conferences, to many a school pupil and even on the big stage under Research Grand Prix in Norway, on TV, and in the newspaper. This study was published in 2021 in Scientific Reports.
Sensitivity of polar cod early life stages to a changing Arctic: A study of the impact of petroleum and warming (Sens2change) The sensitivity of Arctic marine ecosystems is becoming an increasing concern in an era of abrupt climate change concomitant with an increase in anthropogenic activities.
Only through directed and detailed investigation of the impact of multiple stressors to key species and components of the Arctic ecosystem, will the aim of a knowledge-based resource management be achieved. Thus, this project aims at evaluating experimentally the sensitivity of early life stages (ELS) of polar cod, an Arctic key species, to simulated oil spill and sub-optimal thermal conditions. This work addresses critical and highly ecologically relevant research questions and uses innovative methodologies including a detailed characterization of the exposure, uptake and metabolisation of the toxic water-soluble fraction of crude oil in the ELS, the effects on crucial behavioral traits of first feeding larvae and potential alterations of its epigenome. The project will allow developing a polar cod dynamic energy budget model, which is an important tool for ecological risk-based frameworks used by relevant stakeholders such as the oil industry.
Collaborators from eight institutions and three countries will form a precedence for multifaceted investigations of environmental pollution around one of the most pressing environmental risks in the Arctic. The project will directly involve students from the PhD, master, and high school levels and has a broad dissemination and outreach component towards the scientific community, general public and stakeholders. This page follows the study of early life stages of polar cod, an Arctic key species, in the face of oil pollution and increased water temperatures. The study is led Jasmine Nahrgang (UiT The Arctic University of Norway) and is funded by the Norwegian Research Council (through EWMA 2) and the Fram Center flagship MIKON.
We are 8 Institutions involved: UiT, Akvaplan-niva, SINTEF, University Centre In Svalbard, NIFES, Nord University, NOAA (USA) and IFREMER (France). The onsite team in Tromsø includes PhD candidate Morgan L. Bender, PI Jasmine Nahrgang, lab engineer Paul Dubourg, Master candidates Julia Gossa, Connie Jones, Jennifer Laurent and Ragnar Teisrud and Senior researcher Marianne Frantzen.
