University of Gothenburg
University of Gothenburg
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  4. Lina Maria Rasmusson

Lina Maria Rasmusson

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW

Department of Earth
Sciences
Telephone
+46 31-786 28 65
Mail
lina.rasmusson@gu.se
Visiting address
Guldhedsgatan 5a
41320 Göteborg
Room number
4.087
Postal address
Box 460
40530 Göteborg

About Lina Maria Rasmusson

I am a marine plant physiologist with previous main focus on how seagrass and other marine macrophytes respire and photosynthesise. I also looked into the mechanisms behind calcification within calcareous macroalgae. Most of my research focus on how these processes are affected by changes in the surrounding environment, but also how these marine plants can alter the conditions of coastal ecosystems with their carbon dioxide- and oxygen consumption and emissions. I have mostly worked with different oxygen-exchange techniques, but also with PAM fluorometry, alkalinity measurements and gene expression analyzes. My research has been conducted both in field and in laboratories mainly in temperate areas on the Swedish west coast and in Denmark but also in the Mediterranean, East Africa and Australia.

I have now begun a three-year post-doctoral project, funded by a FORMAS mobility grant for young researchers, where my focus is shifted towards northerner latitudes, the Arctic. The aim is to calibrate, evaluate and develop the technology of Algochronology, a methodology that uses the capacity of long living calcifying red algae as historical climate archives. These algae deposit calcium carbonate in annual growth bands, similar to the growth patterns of tree-rings, and within these bands they can incorporate various isotopes and elements differently depending on changes in the marine environment. By extracting material from these layers, detailed reconstructions can be made on how climate-related factors have changed on a yearly basis.My focus is set on how the salinity has changed around Svalbard and Greenland, something that can be related to today's rapid melt off of ice layers and glaciers, and try to figure out how salinity has changed naturally over the past hundreds of years. The outcome will hopefully provide information on historical Arctic North-East Atlantic salinity regime variability and the potential drivers that can serve as a framework for future climate modelling.

This is an interdisciplinary project, combining biological- and geosciences. At GVC I work in Professor Hans Linderholm's research group, but I also collaborate with Professor Jochen Halfar, Department of Chemical & Physical Sciences, University of Toronto and Professor Jason Hall-Spencer, Marine Biology and Ecology Research Center at Plymouth University Marine Institute.

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