Research subject Food Webs and Fisheries

The Baltic Sea ecosystem and marine life are exposed to many different impact factors at the same time. The BalticCAT research project further develops a food web model that will calculate the effects of a large number of natural and human impact factors.

This project will investigate the contribution of cyanobacterial blooms to fish production and contaminant bioaccumulation in the Baltic Sea.

The project evaluates whether Baltic cod food intake and metabolism have varied the last 85 years, similar to what recent findings suggest. It also explores how trophic level may have changed over the last 85 years by analysing ∂15N in archived otoliths.

In the world’s largest ecosystem, marine plankton form complex trophic interaction networks that are influenced by environmental conditions.

for Food Security, Adapting to Climate Change, Sustainable Resource Management and Inclusive Development

The cumulative effects of various human activities on coastal and marine ecosystems are a pressing problem. The seafloor is subject to physical pressures from e.g. construction, dredging, marine traffic and bottom trawling, which may co-occur with each other and with climate change and eutrophication.

The marine ecosystem around the North Pole, the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO), is in fast transition from a permanently to a seasonally ice-covered ocean as a result of global warming. The sea-ice loss will enable summer access to the CAO for non-icebreaking ships, including fishery vessels, in the near future and this project is assessing the impact.

- seafloor integrity, water quality and protected areas

This research project studies the herring spawning activity in the Stockholm Archepelgo in relation to population structure and integrity, by measuring the density of herring larvae during the spawning period.

The BalticHER-project studies the population structure of locally spawning herring on the Swedish east coast. The study will evaluate by cross-checking genetical and otolith chemistry methods whether natal homing is a population structuring mechanism.

Human societies are dependent on ecosystem services for the provision of natural resources, and especially so in poorer developing areas. In coastal East Africa, a sustainable ecosystem production of fish is essential for food security and sustaining human livelihood.

In the project Pilot Stockholm Archipelago, the aim is to through local involvement develop and test a management model for regional ecosystem-based marine management that will help achieve the Swedish environmental objectives. Please switch to the Swedish page for more information about the project.

Small-sized pelagic fish have a central role in marine food webs as they control production of predatory fish and at the same time feed on zooplankton and indirectly control algal blooms.

PlantFish is a three year research project about the role of interactions between benthic plants and large predatory fish in coastal areas of the Baltic Sea. The project examines the functional role of vegetation and predatory fish and how they interact, with focus on the ecosystems of shallow Baltic Sea bays.

This project will investigate possibilities and remediation methods to reverse the negative environmental development taking place in many shallow bays of the Baltic Sea. It aims to contribute to new knowledge that clarify and quantify various influencing factors and effective methods to address them.