The position will be based at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science (EMG) and Ume Marine Sciences Centre (UMF). ECOCHANGE is a new governmental strategic interdisciplinary marine research program focusing on ecosystem dynamics in the Baltic Sea from a climate change perspective. One work package within the program aims to improve the base for environmental status assessment via an increased frequency of measurements using automatic sensor-based systems. This can be foreseen to improve sampling intensity in time and space, as well as economy, compared to the present situation.
Other work packages in the program investigate the effects of climate related changes on lower and higher trophic levels in the Baltic Sea. The program also includes studies of bioavailibility effects of pollutants and their potential to change food web functions. ECOCHANGE is a collaboration between Ume University (UmU), the Linn University in Kalmar, the National Museum of Natural History (NMR) and the Swedish Board of Fisheries (FiV).
Project description
Within the project, a basis for the increased use of different sensors and automatic analysis instruments in marine environmental monitoring will be developed. Focus should be to evaluate how data from presently available environmental sensors can be used to estimate biomass and activity in different trophic levels of the planktonic food web. This will include an analysis and statistical evaluation of environmental data from historic time series, and also extensive measurements in the lab and in contrasting marine environments (from estuaries to open sea) during different seasons.
The project also includes cooperation with scientists from NRM to optimize the design of various monitoring programs with different objectives, both in coastal and open-sea environments. The achieved knowledge will be used to construct recommendations for design of monitoring programs with automatic sensors, focusing both on short-term (e.g. weather events) and long-term (e.g. seasonal, inter-annual and climate-change related) variations.
Post-doc Position in Ecology
