BAMBI -­­ Baltic Sea marine biodiversity – addressing the potential of adaptation to climate change implications – Grant Agreement number: call2012-­­76

PROJECT SUMMARY The overall goal of BAMBI is to assess and improve capacities of marine species to cope with

the current challenge of a rapidly changing Baltic Sea environment. During decreased salinity

and increased temperatures of the Baltic Sea, species with marine origin, in particular, will be

under heavier physiological stress than before. This stress may result in local extinction,

unless species are able to adapt to the new conditions.

The goal of BAMBI is to perform research to be able to understand the potential of organisms

to evolve new adaptations and how management should be framed to support this.

In BAMBI we aim to answer these urgent questions:

1 Will species and ecosystems of marine origin adapt and survive the coming 50-100

years inside the Baltic Sea?

2 If so, what is needed in terms of population sizes, population connectivity and genetic

variation?

3 What governance structures, policy instruments and management measures can

mitigate losses of marine Baltic Sea species?

To answer these questions requires a strong multi-disciplinary research effort that generates

new scientific results reaching beyond current state-of-the-art. In addition, it requires an

operational science-policy interface and a strong end-user involvement. The research

programme BAMBI is designed to meet these demands through:

integrating front-line research competences in genetics and genomics, population

ecology, biophysical modelling, conservation genetic and political sciences

using state-of-the-art research methods, such as next generation sequencing,

population genomics, climate-driven and spatially explicit modelling

actively involving end users, to combine science with practical knowledge throughout

the project

BAMBI is a four-year research project with partners from four different countries around the

Baltic (Estonia, Finland, Germany and Sweden), and competences including from ecology,

genetics, conservation biology, oceanography and political science.

BAMBI will target four ecologically important Baltic Sea species that each contribute with

different ecosystem functions (primary production, grazing, and predation), and together

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constitute a dominant part of a Baltic Sea ecosystem (Fig. 1). These species also work as

experimentally tractable models for evolutionary studies.

! Fig. 1. The seaweeds (Fucus vesiculosus and F. radicans) are grazed upon by the isopod (Idotea balthica),

that is eaten by the fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus), the fish using the seaweed to its nests. This model ecosystem constitutes a dominant part of coastal hard bottom ecosystems of the Baltic Sea. !

During the first year of the project (2014) we have achieved most of the sampling and

fieldwork, according to plan. Thus we have:

• Sampled 95% of the samples of Fucus vesiculosus and F. radicans, throughout their

Baltic Sea range, including the Kattegat and reference samples in Skagerrak and the

Atlantic.

• Sampled 95% of the samples of Idotea balthica throughout its Baltic Sea range,

including reference sites in Kattegat.

• Sampled all samples of stickleback throughout its Baltic Sea range, including

reference sites in Kattegat and North Sea.

All these samples have been stored for DNA (RNA) extractions, a work that has also been

started. In addition, we have improved and designed new (when necessary) protocols for DNA

extraction and analyses, as quality of DNA is critical for the advanced genome-wide RAD

sequencing to work.

A test system for experimental manipulation of combined salinity and temperature for

tolerance and gene expression experiments have been built and the first experiments have

already been performed.

Field surveys of distributions as well as manipulative tests to find out about environmental

requirements for the two sibling species of Fucus have been achieved and additional

distributional data have been gathered from all around the Baltic Sea to be used in predictive

modelling.

Oceanographic modelling of connectivity built on climate models from SMHI in combination

with oceanographic dispersal trajectories have been performed. In addition, we now have

various scenarios for climate changes for the Baltic Sea that will be further explored in

modelling population connectivity for specific species. Experimental, in situ, measurements of

short-distance coastal rafting were performed from sampling sites to simulate rafting of e.g.

seaweeds.

The political science and conservation genetics studies focus on marine conservation and

marine protected areas in Nature 2000 and HELCOM MPAs. Interviews with stakeholders

have been organized during this first year and analyses of these first sets of data are in

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progress. An important milestone is the establishment of an enduser group with

representatives of several of the BAMBI-countries.

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Snapshots from the field campaigns, summer 2014.

Melanie Heckwolf from GEOMAR, Germany, and Luca Rugiu from University of Turku,

Finland, catching sticklebacks close to the Archipelago Research Institute in Finland.

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Pierre De Wit, University of Gothenburg, sampling of Fucus and Idotea outside Ottenby,

south tip of Öland, Sweden.

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Samples of Idotea baltica

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Luca Ruigi and Clara Duffner, University of Helsinki, collecting Fucus outside the

Archipelago Research Institute in Finland.

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Ricardo Pereyra, University of Gothenburg, and Merli Pärnoja, University of Tartu, at the

Kõiguste station on Saarema, Estonia, processing Fucus samples.

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Trackers to simulate the dispersal of detached Fucus plants were deployed along the Swedish

and Finnish coastline under the supervision of Hanna Corell, University of Gothenburg.

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