Press releases

Human beings have affected virtually the entire environment of the earth, and the Baltic Sea has been impacted especially hard by toxic emissions and eutrophication in the last few decades. Animals that live in highly polluted environments can either die out locally or adapt and survive. In a new dissertation in natural science, Emma Lind, of Stockholm University and Södertörn University, shows that the three-spined stickleback fish have developed genetically in a short time in response to the environmental impact of humans.

The more years of education a woman has, the more likely it is that her household uses sustainable farming practices. By combining certain sustainable farming methods, many poor farmers would increase farm income without depleting their soils. This is the conclusion of new research from the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg

Forestry and nature conservation can benefit from promoting a diversity of tree species, new study finds.

Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland work together to explore the possibilities of realizing a Nordic E-Science Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research.

Codling moth (Cydia pomonella) is a major pest insect of apples worldwide; the larvae mine and destroy the fruit.

The study of “sexual conflict” between males and females helps us to understand why sexual reproduction persists given that it can be costly, especially to females. One aspect of this conflict concerns how females respond to increased mating events that are of more benefit to males than to themselves. This work on traumatic insemination was conducted by Umeå university researcher Tom Cameron together with colleagues at the University of Leeds. The results have been published in Biology Letters.

A new investigation put in evidence the key role of cod as regulator of the whole Baltic Sea ecosystem. The study shows that when the cod population in the central Baltic increases, it spreads into larger areas and spills over into adjacent marginal systems where it usually does not occur, as for example the Gulf of Riga.

The Department of Forest Resource Management at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences has received EU funding of 3.3 million euro for the project “The Baltic Landscape in change – innovative approaches towards sustainable forested landscapes”. The project will run until the end of June 2014.

In June 2011, a team of Chinese and Swedish researchers rediscovered the breeding area for the poorly known Blackthroat Luscinia obscura, in the Qinling mountains, Shaanxi province, north central China.

In her dissertation Environmental effects of agricultural expansion in the upper Amazon – a study of river basin geochemistry, hydrochemistry, and farmers´ perceptions, Lina Lindell, a researcher in environmental science at Linnaeus University in Sweden, examines the geochemical status of the natural environment in the Amazonas Region, and to what extent it has been impacted by deforestation and altered land use.