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FRAM FORUM 2021
RESEARCH NOTES
RESEARCH NOTES
The diameter of a sea urchin is measured.
The green sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis).
Photo: Claudia Halsband / Akvaplan-niva
Photo: Claudia Halsband / Akvaplan-niva
FRAM FORUM 2021
Alex Abrahams places sea urchins into individual
Alex Abrahams enjoys what Tromsø has
beakers with or without fibres, along with pieces of
to offer. Photo: Jonas Thoresen
seaweed for food. Photo: Kristine Hopland Sperre / Akvaplan-niva
fibres are egested quickly, within two days. They may also be more durable, and the high number of wool fibres in the faecal material may point to degradation during the digestion process, such that wool fibres break into several pieces.
In the hot, sunny summer of 2020, lab activities were relocated to the jetty. Photo: Claudia Halsband / Akvaplan-niva
In a next step, Alex will analyse the urchin gut contents for fibres. If there is retention of fibres in the intestines, this may increase the possibility of ecotoxicological effects on the urchins and/ or trophic transfer of fibres from the urchins to their predators, such as starfish, crabs, large fish, mammals, birds – and humans. The year 2020 has been full of surprises, charac terised by continuous readjustment and change. The difficulties of the pandemic have been felt by everyone, not least by our students, who had cruises, fieldwork, conferences, and travel sched uled this year. We were lucky to be able to offer Alex field and lab facilities during this period and prevent delays in completing her degree. We look forward to more exciting results from the Arctic Fibre projet in 2021.
ALEX ABRAHAMS, a master’s student in Sophie Bourgeon’s Arctic Marine System Ecology group at UiT, grew up in Adelaide, South Australia. She first came to Tromsø in the darkness of January 2017 and stayed for a one-year exchange as a part of her bachelor studies in Environmental Science. She quickly fell in love with the mountains, the seasons, the people, and the atmosphere in Tromsø. After going back to Australia to complete her studies, she decided to return to Tromsø and start a master’s in biology at UiT in August 2019. Now, she is working at the Fram Centre on her MSc dissertation under the supervision of Drs Sophie Bourgeon (UiT), Claudia Halsband (Akvaplan-niva) and Dorte Herzke (NILU) in the Fram Centre project Effects of degradation and biofilm formation on the fate and ingestion of microplastic fibres in the Arctic.
Biology was a bit of a sidestep for Alex, and at first she had no idea what she wanted to write her thesis about. But a lecture on plastics given by Dr Dorte Herzke showed her the way. Studying plastics felt like an obvious path for Alex, and Dorte and Claudia had an upcoming project that she could be a part of! This was one of those moments when different parts of your life come together in an unexpected way – and Alex could not have been happier about it. Through her previous work in outdoor and nature education, she had become passionate about reducing litter and pollution. Her personal focus on plastic, including slashing her own use of plastic, came into the picture when she first participated in the “Plastic Free July” challenge in 2012, a global event hosted by the Plastic Free Foundation Ltd. The opportunity to learn more about plastic and study its behaviour in the environment in her own scientific studies is thus an exciting endeavour.
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