This time it was the beautiful region of Finnmark that was chosen by four CBA researchers to carry out the fieldwork campaign. The researchers followed a latitudinal gradient and visited some twenty lakes and rivers along almost 500 km from southern Kautokeino to Vardø, at the eastern end of the Varanger peninsula. The work is part of the large international project ARCTIC-BIODIVER, aiming to fill gaps in Arctic freshwater biodiversity knowledge. Our researchers collected environmental DNA (eDNA), phytoplankton, zooplankton, as well as water and gas samples to unravel the production of CO2, CH4 and N2O in such unique ecosystems.
In addition, they had time to visit the area of Iškoras, near Karasjok. This area is affected by thermokarst, and some interesting ponds and lakes have been formed. In collaboration with Sebastian Westermann's group, as well as members of NIVA and NMBU, they collected permafrost samples for incubation in the coming months.
