More about the project
Deficiency of the essential vitamin B1 (thiamin) is an issue affecting behaviour and reproduction negatively in several fish and bird populations. Wild populations around the Baltic Sea seem to be severely affected but the reasons behind thiamin deficiency have not yet been resolved.
Recent modelling studies suggest that increased abundance of small flagellates and picoplankton coincide with a reduced flow of thiamin to higher trophic levels. Hence, a shift in the microbial food web can play a key role in regulating the transfer of this micronutrient in the system.
The aim of this project is to quantify thiamin production and transfer from lower to higher tropic levels in the Baltic Proper under plankton community shifts and different base line levels of thiamin. The project will provide new insights into the causes of thiamine deficiency and the efficiency of thiamin transfer in the marine food web.
The project is part of the research in the research group Marine phytoplankton ecology and applications, in Zooplankton Ecology and in Linnaeus University Centre for Ecology and Evolution in Microbial model Systems (EEMiS)
