Charlotte Perhammar
“Being a doctoral student may feel like being in a world of your own, but you always have to look up and see how your own research fits into a larger context,” says Anna Eklöf, professor of theoretical ecology at LiU and coordinator of the new doctoral student network RediLEEP.
Collaborating with public agencies and companies outside the university is an important feature of doctoral networks funded by the EU’s Marie Sk艂odowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks. For doctoral students, this offers an opportunity for hands-on experience working with applied science during their doctoral studies, for example in nature conservation, environmental management or decision support.
Charlotte Perhammar
“How do we translate fairly academic science into action in real life? The doctoral students get to work together with, for example, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, on such issues” says Anna Eklöf.
The close collaboration will provide the doctoral students with broad experiences and several possible future career paths. It can also bring new perspectives into their research.
“Science is better when methods and results are put to the test in practice,” Anna Eklöf says.
New doctoral students will be recruited
A total of 13 new doctoral students will be recruited. Two of them will become part of Anna Eklöf’s research group, which is focused on mathematical modelling of ecological systems.
The common denominator for the doctoral students in the network will be research on how different species in an ecosystem respond to changes, and more specifically the importance of variation in their responses. Ecosystems are affected by, for example, climate change, fishing, agriculture and restoration measures. Any change can lead to the spread of some species while other species decrease in population.
“When ecosystems are subjected to changes, different species respond in different ways. Variation in the responses can cause the systems as a whole to become more resilient and adaptable, something that’s crucial to preserving functioning ecosystems in times of rapid change,” Anna Eklöf explains.
This variation in different species’ response to change is called response diversity. However, despite the fact that there are strong indications that response diversity is a positive force contributing to ecosystems becoming stable and functional over a long period of time, many questions remain to be answered.
“What we focus on is how response diversity can be measured in a relevant and comparable way. Can we measure in the same way regardless of ecosystem? Once we understand this, this knowledge can be used in practice to restore destroyed ecosystems and hopefully also the response diversity that existed before,” says Anna Eklöf.
Charlotte Perhammar
