Coastal ecosystems, including seagrass beds and coral reefs, are among the most ecological and economical important ecosystems on Earth. At the same time as these ecosystems support livelihoods of coastal communities they are being highly degraded worldwide. Government-managed marine protected areas (MPAs) are a common tool in marine conservation and have been demonstrated to successfully protect natural resources. At the same time, they are increasingly criticized for excluding and marginalizing local communities. Therefore, alternative types of management that are managed by the communities themselves (community-based reserves; CBRs) constitute a promising alternative since they have a much higher acceptance among local people. However, the scientific knowledge on protection effects of CBRs on these critical habitats are scarce, and most research on the effects of place-based management has largely focused on coral reefs. The aim of this thesis was therefore to investigate how MPAs and CBRs affect corals and seagrasses, and their associated communities, using coastal Kenya (East Africa) as a case study. Paper I examines effects from CBRs and MPAs on benthic community composition, and cover and diversity of seagrasses, hard corals and associated benthic organisms. Paper II examines the effects of CBRs and MPAs on the density, size, biomass and potential monetary value of fish; the basis for coastal fisheries that are a particularly important ecosystem service in the study area. The results demonstrate that the small and recently protected Kenyan CBRs can increase the diversity of benthic organisms, protect important functional groups, increase structural complexity, and additionally increase fish size, biomass and monetary value. The results also show that protection from MPAs can result in shifts in both seagrass beds and coral reef communities (from a dominance of stress-tolerant species in fished areas, to stress-sensitive species in protected areas), and that the two habitats were similarly affected by protection. In summary, this thesis suggest that i) locally-managed CBRs may be an important complement to MPAs, and ii) that seagrass beds should more often be included in management plans. / <p>The thesis includes two unpublished manuscripter.</p>

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AbstractI detta arbete har syftet varit att undersöka hur läromedel kan bidra till lärares kemiundervisning åk. 4–6 med fokus på förmågan att använda kemins begrepp, modeller och teorier för att beskriva och förklara kemiska samband i naturen i den svenska läroplanen med utgångspunkt i partikelmodellen. För att undersöka detta valde vi ut de fyra läromedel och lärarhandledningar som fanns representerade inom en mellanstor svensk kommun. Vi genomförde fem lärarintervjuer kopplade till de utvalda läromedlen för att se hur lärare använde läromedlet i sin undervisning. Granskningen av läromedel gjordes med utgångspunkt i Nature of science (NOS), naturvetenskapens karaktär, med fokus på begreppsanvändning och kreativitet. Då detta är aspekter som visat sig vara speciellt svåra för elever att skapa en förståelse för. Resultatet av läromedelsgranskningen visade att alla läromedlen mer eller mindre har potential att utveckla elevers förmåga att använda begrepp, modeller och teorier för att förklara samband utifrån partikelmodellen/fasövergångarna. De intervjuade lärarna konstaterade att läromedel är ett hjälpmedel i undervisningen. Dock poängterar de att de inte vill fastna i sina läromedel och att det är viktigt att känna till vilka svagheter och styrkor ens läromedel har. Dessutom gav de uttryck för att de många gånger inte använder lärarhandledning i någon större omfattning. Detta då lärarna anser att den inte alltid bidrar med det som de önskar. Detta medför att den enskilda läraren behöver ha vetskap kring svagheterna i den lärobok de använder, då den i sig självt inte uppfyller förmågan att utveckla elevers förståelse för kemins begrepp, modeller och teorier. Det finns även betydande skillnader mellan just begreppsanvändning och kreativitet i de olika läromedlen, vilket medför att styrkor och svagheter skiljer sig mellan läromedlen. Vikten av att som lärare ha en förståelse för vilken roll ens läromedel har i exempelvis övergången frånvardagligt språk till vetenskapligt språk. Eller hur de olika bilder och modellerna kan såväl hjälpa som stjälpa elevernas förståelse.

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Hoten mot den biologiska mångfalden är många men kan delas in i tre huvudkategorier: biotopförstörelse, överexploatering och införsel av främmande arter. Främmande eller invasiva arter är arter som introducerats till en plats av människan och som orsakar stora problem för den inhemska biologiska mångfalden som redan existerar på platsen. Parkslide (Reynoutria japonica) är en av de arter som idag räknas som mest invasiv och skapar stora problem för den biologiska mångfalden och samhället. Parkslide har ett aggressivt rotsystem som sprider sig över stora ytor och snabbt utplånar allt som växer i anslutning till den.Syftet med studien var att i samarbete med Örnborg Kyrkander biologi &amp; miljö AB, utarbeta åtgärdsmetoder mot Parkslide samt att studera hur stora rhizomfragment av arten behövde vara för att tillväxa. Studien delades upp i Studie A och B, där studie A undersökte rhizomfragmentens tillväxt. Studie B utförde åtgärdsförsök på Parkslide med hjälp av åtgärdsmetoderna: salt, ättika (24%) samt såpa. Resultatet för studie A visar att det finns skillnad i tillväxt mellan rhizomfragment på 1 cm och rhizomfragment på 3 cm, där 1 cm tillväxte 0% och 3 cm tillväxte 100%. Resultaten hos Studie B visade att salt var överlägsen som åtgärdsmetod och såpa minst effektiv.De resultat som studien lyckats få fram på kort tid bidrar på sikt till att en reducering av Parkslide skulle kunna vara möjlig, vilket kan vara till stor hjälp i skyddandet av de habitat som är speciellt viktiga för många arter och i slutändan för den biologiska mångfalden.

The present project aims at the investigation of the toxic effects of two organic environmental compounds and to determine whether the interactions of the compounds are different in a single and co-cultured system using two cell lines. The two compounds used for this purpose were PFBS (perfluorobutanesulfonic acid) and BaP (benzo[a]pyrene). For this study, two cell lines from rainbow trout, RTgill-W1 (gills) and RTL-W1 (liver) were used to test the toxic impacts of the selected compounds. The cell lines were cultured before performing the further tests using Neutral red cytotoxicity assay, qPCR and a multiple cell system. Neutral red was used to test acute toxicity, qPCR to determine changes in the expression of selected genes, and the multiple cell system for co-culturing. The hypothesis was to establish if there where interactions between the two cell lines in co-culturing and to investigate their sensitivity towards the compounds was comparable to single cell line. Neutral red indicated that neither BaP, PFBS or mixed compounds was causing acute toxicity. However, expression in gene regulation varied between the tested concentrations of BaP and PFBS, thus; co-culture indicated on lower expression.

Aquaculture is important towards the accomplishment of the Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal 14 and rural economic development in developing countries, but today aquaculture still has many unsustainable factors both in water use and organic waste. Biofloc (aggregation of microorganisms) technology is a potential aquaculture system which could make the industry more economic viable and more sustainable. In biofloc technology the reared species is together with microbes in the same water body and the toxic nitrogen species (NH4+) is converted into microbial protein. This gives both better growth performance and feed utilization, but also less water use. However, there are some problems in biofloc technology when the reared species and the microbes both has their own biological preferences towards feed, water parameters and water turbulence. These problems limit the production of the system. In Bio-RAS (term created by A. Kiessling and S. Zimmermann (RAS means Recirculating aquaculture system)) approach the water body is separate between the reared species and the microbes, therefore both organisms can be handled towards their own biological preferences. In this study Bio-RAS approach is tested and compared towards traditionally biofloc technology, where the Bio-RAS results was significant better in both growth performance and feed utilization. The conclusion is that Bio-RAS may be the future “tree branch” for the technology to follow for both economical and sustainability reasons

The lichen population in the vicinity of Domsjö factory, Örnsköldsvik, was studied since many common species seemed to be negatively affected. The first lichen inventory in Örnsköldsvik was done in 1960 and the last one was made in 1988. A connection between the effected lichen and the sulphur dioxide emission as well as the distance from Domsjö factory was then made. The purpose of this study was to investigate if any change could be found in the population of pendoulus lichen in the vicinity of Domsjö factory, Örnsköldsvik, since the last study dating back to 1988. This study investigated the following facts; which are presence, length, and at what height on the trees the lichen Alectoria sarmentosa, Bryoria capillaris and Usnea spp. Only lichen on spruce, with trunks bigger than 150mm at breast hight were also included in the inventory. The results are based on data from 42 sites. No connection between the Domsjö factory, and the presence of Bryoria capillaris could be made, while Usnea spp. still seem to be affected. The length and the height of the investigated lichen did not seem to be affected; by the distance from Domsjö factory nor by the inventoried tree structures. No samples of Alectoria sarmentosa were found in the inventory.

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Biodiversity is a term that has recently been widely used. It is the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur. The ongoing Worldwide biodiversity crisis comes along with a growing demand for feasible environmental indicators to measure, evaluate and communicate anthropogenic influence on biodiversity. Those indicators can be useful tools for national and regional management and support decision making processes. Therefore, LBCI (Landscape Biodiversity Capacity Index) might be a reliable method to measure biodiversity capacity, using land use data. The LBCI method is based on two indicators which are; 1. The landscape functional connectivity and 2. Landscape heterogeneity which includes number of biotopes and evenness of all these biotopes in the specified landscape. The aim of the study was to test for correlations between the BBCI (Biotope Biodiversity Capacity Index) to that of the empirical estimated biodiversity indices of bird species for semi-natural grasslands in different landscapes. The study involved the use of randomly selected fourteen landscapes of bird species, each landscape of bird species observations was downloaded from Artportalen and then two analysis were applied on the data using linear regression and non-linear fitting of Michaelis Menten function to answer the research question. The results obtained suggest that with the fourteen landscapes of bird species data, it was revealed that there was a better strong positive correlation between species richness and BBCI. Moreover, the study also suggests of confirming a positive relationship between Shannon index and BBCI respectively.