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The FORALIEN project aims to fill the knowledge gap on non-indigenous microorganisms in Swedish coastal waters to improve environmental quality assessment tools. The project focuses on benthic foraminifera (protists).

By using their present-day and fossil data from sampling in coastal Sweden and, we will (1) apply novel taxonomical methods to identify alien foraminifera reliably and quickly, (2) analyse their spatio-temporal distribution in small boat harbours to create a biotic index assessing ecosystem impact and (3) identify their unknown ecological requirements to integrate them into biomonitoring surveys.

These findings will improve our understanding of the ecology and distribution of alien microorganism species and will provide a standardised methodology to detect their arrival and possibly forecast future invasions.