A successful 2021 fieldwork season has just been completed in Norway, by NIVA’s and UiO’s joint teams. The teams were led by COASTFRAG coordinator Trine Bekkby (NIVA), and consisted of Medyan Esam Ghareeb, Siri Moy, Eli Rinde and Hartvig Christie (all from NIVA) as well as of Stein Fredriksen (UiO). For the 2021 season, fieldwork focused on Fucus vesciculosus as a first step before targeting Ascophyllum nodosum as well, in 2022.

Activities included the identification of stations presenting three different levels of fragmentation, covering all stations with drone images (drone work made possible thanks to the support by SeaBee, the Norwegian Infrastructure for drone-based research, mapping and monitoring in the coastal zone), recording a huge amount of contextual information and data on seaweed abundance, characterising the community associated with seaweeds, measuring seaweed size and fertility indicators, collecting specimens (of seaweeds and associated fauna and flora), deploying and recovering fauna traps, and launching clearing experiments. Preliminary lab work has also followed while still at the field stations.

These activities will help answer the key questions underpinning COASTFRAG WP1 (How doeas habitat fragmentation impact seaweed communities under different climate regimes and at different spatial scales?) and WP2 (How are coastal seaweed communities and the risk of regime shifts impacted by environmental conditions, local human pressures and habitat fragmentation?). A detailed summary is available in this presentation, and you can enjoy a photogallery of the entire 2021 COASTFRAG fieldwork season here.