Research interests

In recent years human activity in the Baltic archipelago has increased, with boat traffic and shore exploitation more extensive than ever before. Today more than sixty percent of the shoreline in the Stockholm archipelago and almost fifty percent of the shoreline in Lake Mälaren is affected by the development of houses, piers or harbors. At the same time, the landscape has undergone changes due to altered land use by man. The decrease in farming has, for example, led to less open land and less influence of grazing on the vegetation.

As a model organism for measuring biodiversity we are using coastal breeding birds. During the past years these birds have declined in the archipelago and our working hypothesis is that they are negatively affected by habitat changes and increased influence of humans. There are several advantages of using coastal breeding birds as a model organism for measuring biodiversity; one is that they are likely to be sensitive to perturbations in the environment caused by habitat destruction, disturbances or other changes in the ecological context. They are also likely to respond quickly to environmental changes and they are relatively easy to count.

We hope that the results from this project will be important information for decision-makers and legislators and also influence authorities and courts when deciding on matters concerning sustainable development in the archipelago.

I started my PhD in September 2008. My supervisors are Pär Forslund (main supervisor), Anders Glimskär, Lena Gustafsson and Tomas Pärt (assistant supervisors). My project is a part of a larger research-program called “Combining sustainable biodiversity and human activities in the Swedish archipelago” where we collaborate with Michael Ajneståhl (PhD student) and Jan Darpö (senior lecturer) at the Department of Law, Uppsala University.

Publications

Scientific publications

Koblmuller S, Nord M, Wayne RK, Leonard JA. (2009) REPLY – More is better. Molecular Ecology, 18:4994-4996

Koblmuller S, Nord M, Wayne RK, Leonard JA. (2009) Origin and status of the Great Lakes wolf. Molecular Ecology, 18:2313-2326

Björnerfeldt S, Hailer F, Nord M, Vilà C. (2008) Assortative mating and fragmentation within dog breeds. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008, 8:28

Sundqvist A-K, Nord M, Leonard J A, Ellegren H, Vilà C. A paternal view on the domestication of dogs. In: Sundqvist A-K (2008), Conservation Genetics of Wolves and their Relationship with Dogs, PhD thesis, Uppsala University.

Master thesis

Nord, M. 2007. Genetic comparison of pure bred dogs in Sweden. Master Thesis 1278. Department of Evolution, Genomics and Systematics, Uppsala University.