Environmental science and climate change
Environmental science and climate change
Climate change, pollution and destruction of habitats by humans has profound influence on Earths biota. This manifests in all habitats, aquatic and terrestrial, in rural and urban areas, and influences all taxa.
The research topics of biologists in this field are quite diverse, including
- What influence does warming have on vegetation and ecosystem functions?
- What is the interplay of grazing and warming on terrestrial ecosystems?
- How does vegetation progression happen on glacial moraines?
- How does geothermal areas shape microbes and local fauna?
- What influence does sound from vessels affect marine mammals?
- How do alien invertebrates colonize Iceland?
Research projects
Project website
Supervision
About the project
Noise is thought to be one of the main threats to northern bottlenose whales. However, due to their elusive nature, little is known about this species in Iceland and the Northeast Atlantic in general.
This project aims to provide important insights into northern bottlenose whales and evaluate the potential threat of anthropogenic noise disturbance to them by assessing 1) relative abundance and movement directions for the population, 2) individual movement, habitat use, behaviour and responses to noise, and 3) overlap of impulsive anthropogenic noise with whale occurrence and habitat.
To achieve this, the project uses state-of-the-art observation and tracking technologies such as bottom-moored acoustic recorders and satellite tags, combined with photo-identification and surface observations.
Supervision
About the project
Land degradation, often a consequence of human activities, is of global concern. Once an ecosystem has shifted to a degraded state, for example after an extensive period of heavy livestock grazing, excluding grazing may not be sufficient to shift the system back to the original or healthier state. However, the processes that trap ecosystems in a degraded state are not well understood. The aim of this project is to investigate ecosystem processes that slow down or prevent recovery of heavily grazed rangelands following grazing-cessation. More specifically, we will focus on degraded rangeland ecosystems that have not totally collapsed and the role of different plant functional types and soil related processes in retarding or facilitating transitions to a healthier state. Slow responses of such ecosystems following grazing-cessation may be related to the function of the dominating plants that lead to slower decomposition rates and nutrient cycling and lower ecosystem productivity which trap the system in the degraded state. Understanding which processes trap ecosystems in degraded states is a key to sustainable land management plans. We will address the specific research questions through a combination of approaches, from direct observations of relationship between PFTs and ecosystem processes, to experiments (field and laboratory) and modelling approaches.
Supervision
About the project
Concerns over the effects of human-induced environmental changes on marine wildlife, including increasing levels of underwater noise, are rising, particularly in Arctic and subarctic regions. Noise is thought to be one of the main threats for sensitive taxa, such as the most common beaked whale in Icelandic waters, the northern bottlenose whale. However, due to their elusive nature, little is known about this species in Iceland and the Northeast Atlantic in general. This project aims to provide important novel insights into northern bottlenose whales and evaluate the potential threat of anthropogenic noise disturbance to them by assessing
- Relative abundance and movement directions of animals in waters east of Iceland,
- Movement, habitat use, behaviour and responses to noise in the North-eastern Atlantic,
- Overlap of impulsive anthropogenic noise with whale occurrence and habitat.
To achieve this, the project will use state-of-the-art observation and tracking technologies such as bottom-moored acoustic recorders, satellite tags, and aerial and underwater drones, combined with photo-identification and surface observations. This study will provide unprecedented information on the role of beaked whales in the Icelandic marine ecosystem, and the potential effects of human-generated impulsive noise on sensitive species, with application to confamilial species and other human-induced environmental changes.
Supervision
About the project
Humpback whales were near depletion during the mid-20th century, but for the last 2 decades they have been recovering rapidly, particularly in Polar Regions the last few years. The humpback is a migrating baleen whale whose behavior is believed to be largely discrete between their breeding and feeding grounds. Recent evidences on the migration behavior of humpbacks in the North Atlantic have shown a much more delayed winter migration and even overwintering of this species in the subarctic. Recent findings by the applicant showed how males engage in active singing (a male breeding display) during their reported breeding season in the subarctic, indicating a trade-off between growth and reproduction on a polar feeding ground; a strategy which possibly assisted the recovery of humpback whales. Consequently, the humpbacks might play a much larger ecological role in subarctic waters than previously stated. The nature of this role is poorly understood and the scale of the impact in the ecosystem has not been measured. The aim of this study is, therefore, to provide new information about the life history strategy of humpback whales wintering in a polar region by investigating their body condition, reproduction and foraging strategy on a year-round basis with a set of both robust and state of the art methods. The findings will provide a new global perspective of the life history dynamics of this species and their possible response to the rapidly changing climate of the Polar Regions.