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Top down control in Low Arctic lakes and streams

Field report from Kobbefjord, examining how the presence of fish affects the food chain in Low Arctic lakes and streams, using stable isotope analysis.

Crossing a stream to get to the next stream site (Photo: Marie Buchardt).
One of my stream sites at the inlet to Langesø (Photo: Marie Buchardt).
Scraping off periphyton from the rocks in the stream (Photo: Marie Buchardt).

The field work takes place in Kobbefjord just south of Nuuk in Greenland in cooperation with and with help from the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources. The field work started in mid-June 2014 and continues until the beginning of August 2014. I am collecting material from all trophic levels (or to as wide an extent as possible) in the streams to be analysed for the ratio of C13:C12 and N15:N15. Besides this I am also taking samples for water chemistry, chlorophyll a and making descriptions of the stream reaches. 

The lakes were sampled in 2013 as part of the Biobasis program and are, along with the streams, part of my master thesis in Biology at Aarhus University, that is to be submitted on the 1st of May 2015.