08.12.2009

Great research opportunities and a tremendous personal adventure

David Thomas from the School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, Wales describes the first year of his FiDiPro project  Biogeochemistry of the Baltic Sea in a Changing Climate: From Catchment to Open Sea.

2009 has been a year of planning, consolidating ideas, executing pilot experiments and forging links that have arisen from our original FiDiPro application in 2008. In a nutshell our project is to look at the organic matter flowing in to Finnish estuaries and the effect that this has on the microbial communities. In turn these microbes will alter the nature of the organic matter thereby dictating the form this material has upon entering the Baltic Sea.

After much discussion, and a recent 3-day “FidiPro roadshow” to Oulu, Vaasa and Turku for site inspections we have identified our five “model” river/estuary systems. They span not only a wide geographic distribution but also very different land use: Kiiminginjoki, Kyrönjoki, Kokemäenjoki, Paimionjoki and Kajaaninjoki. With a country so strewn with rivers and lakes this was not such a trivial task.

To a newcomer to Finland the chance to work in such very different parts of Finland is a real bonus and provides me with a golden opportunity to experience much of the country, well at least the Western regions. We will sample these systems in spring flood, summer draught and after the autumn rains. By doing so we hope to be able to model large-scale effects of organic matter produced within peat bogs, forests and agricultural land on the coastal waters of the Baltic. We also hope to be able to relate our findings to possible changes that may be induced by climate change.

I keep on referring to “we” and with so much to do the team element of this project is fundamental. Riitta Autio, Hermanni Kaartokallio, Pirkko Kortelainen, Eero Asmala, Antti Räike, Harri Kuosa & Tuija Mattsson make up the core of the team working on the project. However, it is clear from our ambitious plans there is a host of individuals in regional offices and laboratories who, very quickly, will become essential colleagues if we are to realise our goals.

The original plan for our project was that it would bridge connecting research groups in the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) and the Finnish Institute of Marine Research (FIMR).  In 2008 a whirlwind of change for marine research in Finland meant that a bridge was no longer needed since the new Marine Research Centre was established in SYKE.

In an unexpected bonus, at a FiDiPro kick off meeting in 2008 I had a chance lunch with Jaakko Puhakka and Olli Tuovinen (FiDiPro) from Tampere University of Technology. The outcome has been a collaboration looking into algal biomass issues. A PhD student of mine spent 5 weeks in Tampere in the early summer and a student from Tampere is just finishing a 5 week period of research in Wales. So already exchange of scientific ideas and opportunities has been realised in a way we could never have planned.

So in 2009 there has been a lot of coming and going between North Wales and Finland, and much time spent on learning how our research fits within the changed culture for marine research in Finland. 2010 will be the year in which the project gets underway practically. On a personal level my wife and I are now planning in earnest our move in July when we begin our 3.5 year sojourn in Helsinki. FiDiPro offers some great research opportunities, but of course it is also opens up a tremendous personal adventure. My guess is that there will be much to report in my next instalment of this blog.

Tulosta