Our projects and research themes

Theme: Bringing a digital fish to life
Most models in ecology are strongly influenced by Occam's razor, which in modern science means that models and theories shall be as simple as possible. We have, however, also tried to move in the opposite direction, by modelling and putting together several aspects of how it is to be a fish, as detailed and realistic as possible. One goal is to have so rich models that model simulations may replace experiments on live fish.

Project: From terrestrial greening to coastal darkening
Is it possible that a warmer taiga in Russia, Swedish urbanisation policy, or tree planting in Eastern Europe can influence the timing of phyoplankton blooms or fish spawning? through the RCN project A green-blue link made browner: how terrestrial climate change affects marine ecology (2019-), we will spend the next few years investigating a series of ecological links that might explain such curious connections.

Project: Hypoxia on tropical coral reefs
This project will embrace theoretical and empirical work integrating ecology, physiology and behaviour within life history to better our understanding of the role of hypoxia in the heat of the night in coral reef ecosystems.

Project: How can fisheries contribute more to a sustainable future?
The ocean harbours half the global primary production but produces only 2% of human food and 6% of dietary protein. This project takes a step back, and together with key stakeholders considers fisheries as a food system and reimagines their role when the SGDs, the Paris Agreement, and the Convention on Biological Diversity are allowed to define the objective as maximizing food production while minimizing footprint.

Theme: Trait-based Marine Ecosystem Models
Traditionally, ecosystem models represent a few important groups of organisms. In trait-based models organisms are characterised as continuums of traits, and winners emerge from a process resembling natural selection.

Theme: Evolution of Mating Systems
How may mating strategies affect parental investment and cooperation? Using theoretical models of common ecological mechanisms we study how extra-pair mating may trigger male-male cooperation in predator defence and sharing of resources. This provides an adaptive explanation for female promiscuity and a new hypothesis for the evolution of cooperation.

Theme: Models of Early Life Stages in Fish
Larval fish ecology is a theme connecting oceanography and plankton ecology to fisheries science. We build models of larval feeding, bioenergetics and behaviour to understand how the environment affect their growth and survival. This is the key to understand why fish spawn where and when they do, and how environmental change may influence recruitment and phenology.