Cyanotoxin Occurrence and Diversity in 98 Cyanobacterial Blooms from Swedish Lakes and the Baltic Sea.

The Drinking Water Directive (EU) 2020/2184 includes the parameter microcystin LR, a cyanotoxin, which drinking water producers need to analyze if the water source has potential for cyanobacterial blooms. In light of the increasing occurrences of cyanobacterial blooms worldwide and given that more than 50 percent of the drinking water in Sweden is produced from surface water, both fresh and brackish, the need for improved knowledge about cyanotoxin occurrence and cyanobacterial diversity has increased. In this study, a total of 98 cyanobacterial blooms were sampled in 2016-2017 and identified based on their toxin production and taxonomical compositions. The surface water samples from freshwater lakes throughout Sweden including brackish water from eight east coast locations along the Baltic Sea were analyzed for their toxin content with LC-MS/MS and taxonomic composition with 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Both the extracellular and the total toxin content were analyzed. Microcystin's prevalence was highest with presence in 82% of blooms, of which as a free toxin in 39% of blooms. Saxitoxins were found in 36% of blooms in which the congener decarbamoylsaxitoxin (dcSTX) was detected for the first time in Swedish surface waters at four sampling sites. Anatoxins were most rarely detected, followed by cylindrospermopsin, which were found in 6% and 10% of samples, respectively. As expected, nodularin was detected in samples collected from the Baltic Sea only. The cyanobacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) with the highest abundance and prevalence could be annotated to Aphanizomenon NIES-81 and the second most profuse cyanobacterial taxon to Microcystis PCC 7914. In addition, two correlations were found, one between Aphanizomenon NIES-81 and saxitoxins and another between Microcystis PCC 7914 and microcystins. This study is of value to drinking water management and scientists involved in recognizing and controlling toxic cyanobacteria blooms.

Contested ease: Negotiating contradictory modes of elite distinction in face-to-face interaction.

Research on elites and elite schooling mainly theorize the embodied elite distinction of ease as a dispositional phenomenon, drawing on a Bourdieusian framework. I respond to this by developing an interactionist perspective on embodied elite distinction not as a function of social position, but rather as means of communication used more or less actively to manage others' impressions of one's social position. Drawing on ethnography and interviews, I explore how students at two Swedish upper secondary schools with different elite profiles-an economic elite school and a meritocratic elite school-negotiate what counts as successful performances of their elite position in face-to-face interactions during conferences for "young leaders". The findings suggest that in order for performances to be honored as "confident ease," which is attributed with prestige and moral legitimacy in the peer group, the interacting students had to share the impression that the interaction was a "merit situation". In interactions defined as "privilege situations," similar behavior was labelled as arrogant superiority and seen as illegitimate performances of elite position. While "confident ease" was the hallmark of the male students at the economic elite school, the findings suggests that "confident awareness" may be understood as a contradictory mode of elite distinction characterizing the female students from the meritocratic elite school. They display confidence while simultaneously exploiting the unease they felt in the conference to craft a morally legitimate performance of their elite position. While the findings confirm that students' classed, gendered and moral dispositions are central to navigate elite distinction, they also demonstrate that meanings of such embodied distinctions emerge in relation to how situations are defined and are dependent on the interacting students' combined ability and interest to maintain working consensus on the definition of the situation.