Juvenile- and Plankton Technology
The research group aims at developing the next generation cultivation technology of planktonic organisms as microalgae, zooplankton and marine fish fry. The group address the basic biological and technological challenges related to cultivation and industrial potential of new biomarine resources.
Copepoder
Microalger
The research group also produces and sales plankton (micro-algae, rotifers, copepods). For more information about this, contact Ansattinfo mangler
Applied Ecology
This research group focuses its work on the development of a sustainable marine aquaculture.
Currently, the main research areas are:
- Macroalgae cultivation
- Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA)
- Harmful algal blooms (HABs)
- Biofouling
SINTEF has a central position in Norway on R&D on macroalgae cultivation and hosts the Norwegian Seaweed Technology Center. The research group has developed specialized laboratories and sea cultivation systems for macroalgae cultivation, with protocols and techniques that is unique in the North. The group is currently engaged in several R&D-projects involving sustainable food, feed, biochemicals, fertilizers and biofuel production. Industrial scaled biomass production, novel seaweed biorefineries for multiple products and innovative market and product development are targeted for innovative business growth.
The main objective with the work on IMTA is to increase the understanding of possible ecosystem effects of sea based salmon farming and to quantify the potential of fish farm derived wastes as nutrient sources for seaweeds, bivalves and deposit feeders. We study this both under controlled laboratory conditions and under natural cultivation conditions in the sea.
The group has nationally leading expertise on harmful algal blooms (HABs) and monitors harmful algae on commission for the Norwegian Food Safety Authority and the aquaculture industry focusing on human food safety and fish welfare, respectively. To read more about this, see here.
Finally, the group has competence on marine fouling which are being used in projects dealing with biofilm and macrofouling in aquaculture and other marine industries as well as in the development of artificial reefs.
The research group is led by Ansattinfo mangler
Marine modeling
In the marine modelling group, the coupled ecosystem, hydrodynamical and sea ice model SINMOD (Slagstad & McClimans, 2005; Wassmann et al., 2006) is used on a variety of scales to address a number of different research areas. SINMOD has been developed and used at SINTEF over several decades. At large scale, with horizontal resolutions of 12-20 km, the model is used to assess biological production and effects of climate change. Higher resolution model setups can be run using a nesting technique, where larger scale models provide boundary conditions to higher resolution models. At resolutions of 32-160 m, the model is used to assess transport paths of disease and planktonic parasites between locations in salmon aquaculture, and for nutrients and waste from aquaculture cages. The model provides current input for modelling of oil spills and particle transport and sedimentation. Such models are used in relation to accidental oil spills, in environmental monitoring of underwater oil drilling operations, and for assessing sedimentation below aquaculture farms or in relation to planned deposits of mass from mining operations or other sources.
The research group is led by Ansattinfo mangler
