University of Gothenburg

At the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences (BioEnv) we have teaching and research activities that stretch from the alpine ecosystem, through forests, cultivated land and streams, all the way into the marine environment. In these environments we study different levels of biological organisation from genes, individuals, and populations, to communities and ecosystems. We work within ecology, evolution, physiology, systematics, and combinations of these fields to understand the impact of natural and anthropogenic changes of the environment. The department also hosts the FRAM Center for Future Chemical Risk Assessment and Management Strategies. The department currently has 146 employees, 30 of them are PhD-students, and 450 full time bachelor and master students.
 

Research interests & main objectives

Algal and Microbial Ecotoxicology (AME) Lab is part of the Aquatic Ecotoxicology research area. AME lab focuses on assessing the presence and effects of chemicals (pharmaceuticals, pesticides, metals), microplastics, and wastewater microorganisms on algal and microbial biodiversity changes, tolerance development, primary production, general carbon metabolism, and contaminant transformation in a situation of global change. Using natural communities, ecophysiological and genomics tools seeks to increase the ecological relevance of the ecotoxicological assessments.

Principal investigator

Natàlia Corcoll Cornet, Associate Professor/Senior lecturer - group leader for the AME Lab

Equipment and processes

The AME lab has access to strong local infrastructures for bioassays (eg. incubator chambers, microcosm facilities, radiolabelled lab, chlorophyll fluorometers, flow cytometers, HPLC, LC-MS, GC-MS, etc), field sampling (sediment cores, periphyton racks, boats) and equipped molecular labs for the generation of DNA/RNA extracts, and PCR-based approaches. We can make use of the SciLifeLab and the National Genomics Infrastructure (NGI) equipped with technology for massively parallel/next generation DNA/RNA sequencing (eg. Illumina Mi-Seq, PacBio or NanoDrop), genotyping and associated bioinformatics support.