Professor Graduate students: Martin Pedersen Mikael Pontarp

Our research focuses on classic questions about system stability and complexity, and how temporal and spatial heterogeneity affect the abundance and distribution of organisms. We study the interplay between environmental stochasticity and demography and large-scale populations dynamics and the importance of environmental stochasticity and local dynamics on regional patterns of population synchrony and dispersal. As partners of the Nordic Center of Excellence - EcoClim we are interested in how climate and weather should be incorporated in ecological theories and models of population and community dynamics.


Community structure and dynamics.
We develop theories of community structure and dynamics in order to predict community stability properties in response to disturbances such as invasion and loss of species. We are interested in the relative importance of biotic and abiotic and abiotic factors contribute to community properties and the limits to species richness in communities and the rules for coexistence and invasion. The distribution of interactions strengths and the topoplogy of the community intercations also play an important role in adaptive radiation and the evolution of new species.

Life history evolution and population and community dynamics.
We are interested in how the evolution of life histories constrain or pave the way for dynamic responses to biotic and abiotic changes in the environment. Conversely, we ask how environmental variability may constrain facilitate the evolution of alternative life history strategies. This works also involves studies of niche evolution, community invasion dynamics and "community closure". An important application of this research is to understand how the exploitation of natural populations, particularly intensive harvesting in marine systems, affects life history traits and evolution. We are partners of the Marie Curie Research Training Network FishACE - Fisheries-induced Adaptive Changes in Exploited Stocks.

Selected Publications

Carpenter, S. R., Armbrust, E. V., Arzberger, P. W., Chapin, F. S. III, Elser, J. J., Hackett, E. J., Ives, A. R., Kareiva, P. M., Leibold, M. A., LUNDBERG, P., Mangel, M., Merchant, N., Murdoch, W. W., Palmer, M. A., Peters, D. P. C., Pickett, S. T. A., Smith, K. K., Wall, D. H. & Zimmerman, A. S. 2009. Accelerate synthesis in ecology and environmental sciences. – BioScience 59 (8): 1-3.

Aikio, S., Valosaari, K.-R., Ranta, E., Kaitala, V. & LUNDBERG, P. 2008. Invasion under a trade-off between density dependence and maximum growth rate. – Population Ecology 50: 307-317.

Ranta, E., Kaitala, V., Björklund, M. Lundberg, P., Bach, L. A. & Stenseth, N. C. 2008. Environmental forcing and genetic differentiation in subdivided populations. – Evolutionary Ecology Research 10: 1-9.

Kimbrell, T., Holt, R. D. & Lundberg, P. 2007. Intraguild predation and the influence of vigilance. – Journal of Theoretical Biology 249: 218-234.

Olofsson, H. & Lundberg, P. 2007. The twofold cost of sex unfolded. – Evolutionary Ecology Research 9: 1119-1129.

Månsson, L., Ripa, J. & Lundberg, P. 2007. Time series modelling and trophic interactions: rainfall, vegetation and ungulate dynamics. – Population Ecology 49: 287-296.

Bach, L. A., Ripa, J. & Lundberg, P. 2007. On the evolution of conditional dispersal under environmental and demographic stochasticity. – Evolutionary Ecology Research 9: 1-11.

Nilsson, A., Lundberg, P., Brönmark, C., Persson, A. & Turesson, H. 2007. Behavioral interference and facilitation in the foraging cycle shape the functional response. – Behavioural Ecology 18: 354-357

Pommier, T., Canbäck, B., Riemann L., Boström K. H., Simu K., Lundberg, P., Tunlid, A. & Hagström Å. 2007. Global patterns of diversity and community structure in marine bacterioplankton. – Molecular Ecology 16: 867-880.

Coulson, T., Benton, T. G., Lundberg, P., Dall, S. R. X. & Kendall, B. E. 2006. Putting evolutionary biology back in the ecological theatre: a demographic framework mapping genes to communities. – Evolutionary Ecology Research 8: 1155-1171. 

Wilson, W. G. & Lundberg, P. 2006. Non-neutral community dynamics: empirical predictions for ecosystem function and diversity from linearized consumer-resource interactions. – Oikos 114:71-83. 

Coulson, T., Benton, T. G., Lundberg, P., Dall, S. R. X., Kendall, B. E. & Gaillard, J.-M. 2006. Estimating individual contributions to population growth: evolutionary fitness in ecological time. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Lond., Ser. B., 273: 547-555.

Regan, H. M., Ben-Haim, Y., Langford, W., Wilson, W. G., Lundberg, P., Andelman, S. J. & Burgman, M. A. 2005. Robust decision making under severe uncertainty for conservation management. Ecological Applications 15: 1471-1477.

Wilson, W. G. & Lundberg, P. 2004. Biodiversity and the Lotka-Volterra theory of species interactions: open systems and the distribution of logarithmic densities. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Lond., Ser. B. 271:1977-1984.

Morris, D. W., Diffendorfer, J. E. & Lundberg, P. 2004. Dispersal among habitats varying in fitness: source-sink dynamics, balanced dispersal or pulsed migration through ideal habitat selection? Oikos 107: 559-575.

Wilson, W. G., Lundberg, P., Vázquez, D.P., Shurin, J. P., Smith, M., Langford, W., Gross, K. L & Mittelbach, G.G. 2003. Biodiversity and species interactions: extending Lotka-Volterra community theory Ecology Letters 6: 944-952.

Kokko, H. & Lundberg, P. 2001. Dispersal, offspring retention and partial migration in saturated habitats. American Naturalist 157: 188-202.

Morris, D. W., Lundberg, P. & Ripa, J. 2001. Hamilton’s rule confronts ideal-free habitat selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, Ser. B. 268: 921-924.

Lundberg, P., Ranta, E. & Kaitala, V. 2000. Species loss leads to community closure. Ecology Letters 3: 465-468.

Lundberg, P., Ranta, E., Ripa, J. & Kaitala, V. 2000. Population variability in space and time. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15: 460-464.

Books:

	Fryxell, J. M. & Lundberg, P. 1997. Individual Behavior and Community Dynamics. Chapman & Hall
	Ranta, E., Lundberg, P. & Kaitala, V. 2005. Ecology of Populations. Cambridge University Press.

Teaching

Undergraduate teaching

Ecology BIO 611
Conservation Biology BIO 790
Theoretical Ecology BIO 736

Graduate teaching

History and Philosophy of Science (Lund University and Swedish Univerisity of Agricultural Sciences)

Links

National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)

National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent)

OIKOS

Department of Biological and Enviromental Sciences Helsinki University

Address: Theoretical Ecology, Ecology Building,  223 62 Lund , Sweden
Phone: +46 (0)46 2220000, Fax: +46 (0)46 2224716
Webmasters: Jorgen Ripa & Fredrik Haas