Arctic and Antarctic Ecology

Life-history adaptations to seasonality

Polar and other high-latitude ecosystems are highly seasonal. This inspires our work in evolutionary ecology. We study behavioural and life history adaptations to seasonality, including the consequences of these adaptations for ecological interactions. We are for instance interested in why organisms migrate, how they arrange their life and year, why some grow large and build large energy stores, and why others stay small and spend the non-productive season as small and diapausing resting stages.

Light and a changing riskscape in the future Arctic Ocean

Arctic sea-ice loss is rapidly transforming the entire ecosystem. Less ice means reduced shading and increased light, boosting the foraging efficiency of planktivorous fish. Arctic copepods, being particularly large, are at greater risk due to their visibility to predators, which could lead to a community-wide shift toward smaller, less fat individuals or species, potentially causing ripple effects throughout the Arctic food web.

Light limits distributions at high latitudes

State-of-the-art correlative species distribution models predict the poleward expansion of boreal species into high-latitude environments based on environmental conditions but often overlook the light environment. In contrast, our mechanistic models, which account for temperature-dependent bioenergetics and light-driven encounters, reveal that seasonal light environments act as a barrier, preventing key species groups from colonizing high-latitude oceans despite climate change.

Some of our research has contributed to and informed the scientific basis of the IPCC AR6 WGII report on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability , see e.g. sections 3.4.2.10 Polar Seas or CCP6.2.1.1 Warming and sea ice retreat cause shifts in distribution ranges of species.

Seabird ecology

Seabirds are long lived organisms, and in polar and high-latitude environments they have evolved seasonal migrations as well as distinct and narrow windows for reproduction. Measuring individual traits, repeatedly through time, is possible when studying seabirds - of great value for questions on state-dependent behaviour and life histories. Furthermore, seabirds are sometimes valuable indicators of ocean processes that may be hard to study directly. Insights about biological oceanography can for instance be gained by studies of seabird foraging and diet. Our work span from theoretical investigations and field experiments to contributions on natural history. We work actively with SEAPOP and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and many master students at the department are doing their projects on seabird related topics.