Kicking Off a New Limnotron Experiment at NIOO!

As part of the PHABB project and the BLOOMTOX ERC grant, PhD candidates Antoine Grenier-Journe and Annemieke Drost at the NIOO-KNAW (The Netherlands) are launching an exciting new experiment using Limnotrons—1,000-liter indoor mesocosms made of stainless steel. These tanks act like mini-lakes, helping scientists study aquatic ecosystem processes in a controlled environment.

This experiment aims to understand how community dynamics of cyanobacteria—microscopic organisms that can form harmful blooms in water— are affected by different temperature and nutrient scenarios during the spring and summer. From the PHABB consortium, Antoine's project focuses on how pathogens (such as viruses and microscopic parasites) impact the composition and interactions between species inside those mini-lakes. 

The first step of the experiment? Filling the tanks with 12,000 litres of lake water, freshly collected from the lake Grote Plas nearby Delft (known for its frequent harmful blooms during summer). After that, the twelve Limnotrons were split between different temperature and nutrient treatments to officially start the experiment. They are now closely monitored and sampled weekly, until the end of the study in October!

Stay tuned as we dive deeper into this innovative research on freshwater ecosystems!