Cumulative Stressors in High North Ecosystems: Workshop and Collaboration in Tromsø

In March this year I boarded a plane in Edinburgh and flew north. A brief stop in Oslo included a blast of Scandinavian air and a stamped passport as a post-Brexit novelty, before another plane continued north. I was going back to Tromsø. Tromsø has been the setting for my professional inspiration, fish biology learning, and fun work-life challenges for 24 years. I first visited as a summer student from the Gatty Marine lab, helping with experiments on sea lice and salmonids in Finnmark, with an occasional trip to the ‘southern’ city of Tromsø. I loved the endless Arctic summer, the people, the water and fishy adventures, and the vast wilderness, and those inspiring early research experiences formed the basis of my marine biology career, spanning latitudes, seasons, and taxonomic groups but always linking Scotland to the high Arctic.

 This years’ trip was special. It was the final workshop for the CLEAN project, a large consortium of 13 institutes and 94 scientists collectively researching “Cumulative impact and multiple stressors in High North ecosystems”. This project has been an interesting inter-disciplinary collaboration between ecotoxicologists such as me and ecologists, speaking different scientific languages and seeing data from different perspectives. The project has enabled me to be an active link between the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) and the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) though my adjunct associate professor position in the Arctic Technology Department. The workshop discussed progress in identification of species traits, sensitivities, and stressors, and related these to Svalbard, the Pasvik region, the Barents Sea, Coast, and Terrestrial case studies, and synthesizing 5 years of complex work together.

In addition, I also visited colleagues and friends including Claudia Halsband, Paul Renaud, and Marianne Frantzen from Akvapln-niva, Jasmine Nahgang from UiT the Arctic University of Norway, and Rune Nilsen from the Institute for Marine Research. This Arctic city island, surrounded by cold waters, snow-capped mountains, and big skies is a special place, packed with Scottish and Norwegian Arctic scientists who have found mutual inspiration. It is a place of chats about fish, zooplankton, and climate change whilst making future plans for testing new hypotheses and new sampling campaigns. It is a place for dreams and the best side of productive, collaborative, inspiring science. Many thanks to SCAN for the funds to support this trip – the outcomes are refreshed ideas for new work with old and new friends.

Originally published on the SCAN website: Cumulative Stressors in High North Ecosystems: Workshop and Collaboration in Tromsø – Scottish Arctic Network

The Scottish Arctic Network (SCAN) also serves as a UArctic Regional Centre in Scotland.