Description
The aim of the project is to establish the cooperation between the Charles University in Prague and the University of Oslo, represented by professor Ugland. The mutual project will focus on microalgal communities associated with different types of natural substrates in freshwaters. In addition, parallel sampling in the Czech Republic and Norway would ascertain whether the detected patterns of microbenthos are generalized over larger geographical scale. The main innovation of the project will be to suitably apply Ugland´s gambin model on the obtained datasets. The proposed project will, firstly, help to improve the gambin model, in terms of its extended utilization and better understanding of the outcomes. Secondly, the project should provide more general insight into ecology of freshwater microphytobenthos. In close collaboration with professor Ugland, it is expected to publish the results in the impact journals. Moreover, the results will be potentially useful in the applied fields.
Summary of project results
The main aim of the project was to establish the scientific cooperation between the Charles University in Prague and the University of Oslo. Three researchers and three students with different abilities and experience built a team in order to collect data worth publishing. Two students visited University in Oslo to consult statistic methods with professor Ugland and to collect samples from freshwater benthic habitats in nearby localities. Together with professor Ugland, the team prepared two datasets about microalgal communities for publication in ISI-listed journals. The results of the project will be available as publications in the impact journals for anybody interested. Moreover, a project web page and summary reports for different institutions have been published.
Summary of bilateral results
The project was needed to establish and strengthened scientific cooperation as a team. The mobilities enabled personal contact that is not replaceable with written communication. Furthermore, mobilities enabled sampling in Norway. We found two obstacles in our research: firstly, search for published papers from lentic habitats in Norwegian localities showed insufficient amount of data; secondly, a new statistical approach (Ugland's gambin model) was not ready for analyses of large datasets. The main objective was to establish beneficial scientific cooperation. The effective cooperation was enabled by the mobility, collection of primary data and by preparation of joint papers. We realized that preparation of papers for publication would need more time. We will stay in touch as a team to finish the publication of the two papers even after the ending of this project. We frankly hope for other mutual research projects in the future. Thanks to the project the institutional cooperation has been increased and strengthened at all levels of the education sector. It is likely that especially the collaboration of Czech students within this project will encourage these students to participate in other international projects and to proceed in their future scientific career. Although the topic of the papers has been changed from the project proposal, we believe that both papers will be worth publishing. The main benefit was a short-term mobility of Czech students. The mobility to Norway enabled personal communication and sampling of localities that are absent or rare in the Czech Republic. We have gained experiences that will be useful for preparing papers to ISI-listed journals, writing applications of future projects, and for finding a job in the field of biology. We have had the opportunity to discuss different statistical approaches and to compare distribution of diatoms.