The proposed project will address the question of if and how biodiversity at the genetic level influence the ability of species and ecosystems to respond to environmental disturbance (pollutants) in the Baltic Sea.

Due to its large, heavily populated, industrialized and farmed drainage area, and its long water residence time, a complex mix of contaminants concentrate in the system. Anthropogenic contamination is strongly associated with reductions in the species richness and evenness of marine habitats and the Baltic Sea is considered to be one of the most polluted seas in the world.

The Baltic Sea is also a marginal ecosystem with many unique evolutionary lineages, distinct from related North Sea populations, and constitutes important genetic resources that are vulnerable to environmental change. Therefore, the ecology of the Baltic Sea may be unusually sensitive to environmental perturbations. This project will use a combination of experiments, field investigations of genetic variation, and controlled laboratory studies of two common Baltic Sea organisms, a fish the three-spined stickleback and a mollusc the Blue mussel.

Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för livsvetenskaper

Katarzyna Smolarz, doktorand, katarzyna.smolarz@sh.se
Mats Grahn, mats.grahn@sh.se
Josefine Larson, josefine.larson@sh.se
and 2 students from Poland