Lina Mtwana Nordlund

Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at Department of Earth Sciences; Natural Resources and Sustainable Development

Telephone:
+46 18 471 84 40
Mobile phone:
+46 70 167 99 81
E-mail:
lina.mtwana.nordlund@geo.uu.se
Visiting address:
Campus Gotland, Cramérgatan 3
SE-621 57 Visby
Sweden
Postal address:
Uppsala universitet, Campus Gotland
SE-621 67 Visby
Sweden
ORCID:
0000-0002-4450-2331

Short presentation

  • Coasts and shallow seas
  • Transdisciplinary approach
  • Strong sustainable development
  • Future thinking
  • Social-ecological systems (focus on seagrass, fisheries, Blue food, ecosystem services and management).
  • Biology & Ecosystems panel member, Global Ocean Observation System (GOOS), IOC-UNESCO
  • United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), the ‘Ocean Decade’, Working group 2 Protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity

Keywords

  • baltic sea
  • blue food
  • ecosystem services
  • environment
  • fisheries
  • fiske
  • future thinking
  • gopole004
  • hav
  • hållbar utveckling
  • indo-pacific
  • kust
  • kustzon
  • mpa
  • natural resource management
  • seagrass
  • sjögräs
  • social-ecological systems
  • sustainability
  • sustainable development

Biography

Supervision of degree projects

If you are interested in conducting a degree project (candidate or master level) with me as a supervisor, you are welcome to contact me via e-mail. In the e-mail please include a short personal letter describing who you are, what you are interested in doing, when you want to do it and what relevant experience you may have, as well as your CV.

Within the research collaboration, Indo-Pacific Seagrass Network, there are several possibilities to conduct a master's project focusing on seagrass and associated species.

If you are interested in research on strong sustainability, biodiversity and fisheries in the coastal zone in the Baltic Sea, there are also many opportunities.

Publications – a selection

Please visit my Google Scholar profile for a complete list of publications.

Nordlund LM; Unsworth RKF; Wallner-Hahn S; Ratnarajah L; Beca-Carretero P; Boikova E; Bull J; Chefaoui R; de los Santos C; Gagnon K; Garmendia J; Gizzi F; Govers L; Gustafsson C; Hineva E; Infantes E; Canning-Clode J; Jahnke M; Kleitou P; Kennedy H; Klayn S; Moller T; Monteiro J; Nerea P; Ponis E; Papathanasiou V; Poursanidis D; Pieraccini R; Serrano O; Sousa A; Schaefert S; Rossi F; Storey S; van Katwijk M; Wall D; Ward E; Wilkes R. 2024. The 100 priority questions for seagrass conservation in Europe. Plants, People, Planet. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10486

Pike F, Jiddawi NS, Nordlund LM. 2024. Intertidal gleaning fisheries: Recognising local-scale contributions and management scenarios. Marine Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2024.106059

Corrine Almeida, Mathieu Belbéoch, Lance Braasch, Forest Collins, Thomas J. Cuff, Brad de Young, J. Emmett Duffy, Björn Fiedler, Darin Figurskey, Severine Fournier, Sarah Grimes, Emma Heslop, Long Jiang, Johannes Karstensen, Elizabeth Kent, Roxy Mathew Koll, Arne Körtzinger, David Legler, Belén Martin Miguez, Ivanice Monteiro, Lina Mtwana Nordlund, Clare Nullis, Joanna Post, Regina Rodrigues, Emanuela Rusciano, Alex Sen Gupta, Raquel Somavilla, Sabrina Speich, Laura Stukonyte, David Wyatt, Weidong Yu, Ann-Christine Zinkann. 2023. Ocean Observing System Report Card 2023. https://www.ocean-ops.org/reportcard/

Alati VM, Osuka K, Otwoma LM, Tuda P, Nordlund LM. 2023. Gender analysis in fisheries: The case of the shelled mollusc fisheries in Kenya. Marine Policy 158 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2023.105863

Stiepani J, Jiddawi N, Nordlund LM. 2023. Social-ecological system analysis of an invertebrate gleaning fishery on the island of Unguja, Zanzibar. Ambio. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-022-01769-1

Charisiadou S, Halling C, Jiddawi N, von Schreeb K, Gullström M, Larsson T, Nordlund LM. 2022. Coastal aquaculture in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Aquaculture 546, 737331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2021.737331

Jones B, Cullen-Unsworth L, de la Torre-Castro M, Nordlund LM, Unsworth R, Eklöf J .2022. Unintended consequences of sustainable development initiatives: risks and opportunities in seagrass social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 27:2. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-13063-270210

Jones BL, Nordlund LM, Unsworth RKF, Jiddawi NS, Eklöf JS. 2021. Seagrass structural traits drive fish assemblages in small-scale fisheries. Frontiers in Marine Science 8, 354. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.640528

McKenzie L, Nordlund LM, Jones BL, Cullen-Unsworth LC, Roelfsema CM, Unsworth RKF .2020. The global distribution of seagrass meadows Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7d06

Alonso Aller E, Eklöf JS, Gullström, M, Kloiber U, Linderholm HW, Nordlund LM. 2019. Temporal variability of a protected multispecific tropical seagrass meadow in response to environmental change. Environ Monit Assess 191: 774. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7977-z

Unsworth RKF, McKenzie L, Collier CJ, Cullen-Unsworth LC, Duarte CM, Eklöf JS, Jarvis JC, Jones BL, Nordlund LM. 2019. Global challenges for seagrass conservation. AMBIO A Journal of the Human Environment. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1115-y.

Jahnke, M., Gullström, M., Larsson, J., Asplund, M. E., Mgeleka, S., Silas, M. O., Hoamby, A., Mahafina, J., Nordlund, LM. 2019. Population genetic structure and connectivity of the seagrass Thalassia hemprichii in the Western Indian Ocean is influenced by predominant ocean currents. Ecology and Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5420

Unsworth RKF, Nordlund LM, Cullen-Unsworth LC. 2019. Seagrass meadows support global fisheries production. Conservation Letters. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12566

Nordlund LM, Unsworth RKF, Gullström M, Cullen-Unsworth LC. 2018. Global significance of seagrass fishery activity. Fish and Fisheries. 399-412doi.org/10.1111/faf.12259

Unsworth RKF, McKenzie L, Nordlund LM, Cullen-Unsworth LC. 2018. A changing climate for seagrass conservation? Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.09.027

van Keulen M, Nordlund LM, Cullen-Unsworth LC. 2018. Towards recognition of seagrasses, and their sustainable management. Editorial. Marine Pollution Bulletin 134: 1-4. 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.08.046

Hedberg N, von Schreeb K, Charisiadou S, Jiddawi NS, Tedengren M, Nordlund LM. 2018. Habitat preference for seaweed farming – A case study from Zanzibar, Tanzania. Ocean and Coastal Management, 154:186-195. doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2018.01.016

Nordlund LM, Jackson E, Nakaoka M, Samper-Villareal J, Beca-Carretero P, Creed J. 2017. Seagrass ecosystem services – What’s next? Marine Pollution Bulletin. doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.09.014

Gullström M, Lyimo LD, ...., Nordlund LM, Björk M. 2017. Blue Carbon Storage in Tropical Seagrass Meadows Relates to Carbonate Stock Dynamics, Plant–Sediment Processes, and Landscape Context: Insights from the Western Indian Ocean. Ecosystems, 1-16. doi.org/10.1007/s10021-017-0170-8

Nordlund LM, Koch EW, Barbier EB, Creed JC. 2016. Seagrass Ecosystem Services and Their Variability across Genera and Geographical Regions. PLoS ONE 11(10): e0163091. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0163091

Nordlund, L.M. 2016. Teaching ecology at university—Inspiration for change. Global Ecology and Conservation. 7:174–182. doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2016.06.008

Science communication #Scicom

I am active on twitter. Follow @ResearchLina

I am the twitter moderator behind World Seagrass Association Follow @Seagrass_WSA

Education

2012: PhD in Marine and Environmental Research, Åbo Akademi University, Finland

PhD dissertation (Dec 2009-Sep 2012): People and the intertidal - Human induced changes, biodiversity loss, livelihood implications and management in the Western Indian Ocean.

2008: M.Sc. in Marine Biology, Tropical Marine Environments, Stockholm University, Sweden

2007: M.Sc. in Biology & Ecology and B.Sc. in Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden

Research

My research projects:

BioEcoOcean - Co-Creating Transformative Pathways To Biological And Ecosystem Ocean Observations

2024-2028: Horizon Europe funded project. Project Coordinator.

Rethinking MPAs - Protecting seagrass for biodiversity, food and climate

2022-2025: In the project, we will assess how MPAs could be better designed to help safeguard the future of Indo-Pacific seagrasses and, indirectly, the crucial benefits they provide to coastal communities. Main collaborators: Nikos Alexandridis, Johan Eklöf, Narriman Jiddawi, Richard Unsworth, Leanne Cullen-Unsworth, Jeff Dambacher. PhD Student: Nicholas Hoad. Funded by the Swedish Research Council VR-2021-03773. PI: Lina Mtwana Nordlund.

Fisheries and coastal development in small island context - the past, present and future

2020-2025: This transdisciplinary project is to combine coastal and fisheries development in a small island context in the past with the present to help develop sustainable ways forward. The project has a specific focus on the island of Gotland. PhD Students: Chiara D'Agata and Beatrice Krooks PIs: Lina Mtwana Nordlund & Helene Martinsson-Wallin.

Blue Food - Centre for future seafood: Linking habitat to resource ‐an holistic approach

2021-2025: Funded by Swedish Research Council for sustainable development 2020-02834. PI: Fredrik Gröndahl, KTH. PIs at Uppsala University: Gunilla Rosenqvist & Lina Mtwana Nordlund. Postdoc: Adrianus Both and Sara Kurland

Seagrass around the island of Gotland

2019-: PI: Lina Mtwana Nordlund. Step zero analysis, Seagrass energy flux (lead by Jon Lefcheck, MarineGeo), Seagrass (Eelgrass) connectivity (lead by Josefine Larsson). 2019-2021: A collaborative project between the County administrative board Gotland (Rozemarijn Keuning) and Uppsala University (Dr. Lina Mtwana Nordlund) about seagrass distribution and seagrass health and establishing seagrass protection.

Blue-green transformations of small-scale fisheries - Fishers’ perspectives

2021-2025: We will investigate if and how SSFs in the Global North can transition, and by doing so fulfil their potential to contribute to a larger transition towards sustainable development of fisheries. Funded by Forte 2021-01747. PI: Sieglind Wallner-Hahn. Co-applicant: Lina Mtwana Nordlund .

Previous projects:

Establishing an Indo-Pacific Seagrass Network (IPSN) to assess linkages among marine biodiversity, ecosystem services and poverty

2018-2023: I am the founder and the director of Indo-Pacific Seagrass Network, a research network https://indopacificseagrass.network/ .The research network aims to build capacity and perform standardized, coupled social-ecological surveys of seagrass and associated fisheries across the Indo-Pacific. Funded by the Swedish Research Council VR-2017-05411. PI: Lina Mtwana Nordlund.

Beachgoers and seafood habits in the Baltic Sea

2020-2023: PI: Lina Mtwana Nordlund. Postdoc: Sieglind Wallner-Hahn.

Seagrass biodiversity, social-ecological systems and poverty alleviation: a collaborative, comparative study in the Indo-Pacific (SeaSTEP)

2018-2023: This project assesses the joint influences of marine biodiversity and characteristics of coastal people on the role of seagrass systems in supporting poverty alleviation. Funded by Swedish Research Council 2017-05535. PI Johan Eklöf. Co-applicant and co-supervisor: Lina Mtwana Nordlund. PhD Student: Benjamin Jones

Seagrass ecosystem functionality and conservation: A multi-disciplinary approach

2015-2019: A multidisciplinary project focusing on different aspects of seagrass. There are four sub-tasks within this project: 1) Seagrass population genetics in the Western Indian Ocean and management implications; 2) Seagrass management; 3) Seagrass ecosystem functionality; 4) Innovative mapping of coastal environments. Funded by the Swedish Research Council Formas 2014-01288. PI: Lina Mtwana Nordlund

Intertidal management in the Western Indian Ocean – current status and future possibilities

2012-2013: Funded by WIOMSA. PI: Lina Mtwana Nordlund

Media

A tool to increase the utility of ocean observations

Life in the ocean is the focus for the major new EU project BioEcoOcean. One main task will be developing a working method for supporting the development and coordination of ocean observations and measurements to make them comparable from one country, research group and management agency to the next. The project will last four years and has a budget of SEK 67.5 million.

Keynote presentation about seagrass ecosystem services

Keynote presentation by Dr Lina Mtwana Nordlund, Associate Senior Lecturer, Uppsala University, for the Coastal Wetlands Twitter Conference #CWTC21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewmX3mSdB84&t=267s

Podcast about seagrass

Is the Seagrass Always Greener? A Climate Guide to Seagrass A podcast by The Sweaty Penguin

https://thesweatypenguin.com/47-seagrass/

Presentation of one of my research project

A presentation of our project in interdisciplinary research school in Sustainable development at Campus Gotland

https://youtu.be/qWc5DLPThsg

Article in The Conversation

Loss of marine habitats is threatening the global fishing industry – new research

https://theconversation.com/loss-of-marine-habitats-is-threatening-the-global-fishing-industry-new-research-96561

Blue Forests Week 2022

Webinar #1 of Blue Forests Week 2022. Unsung heroes: The hidden value of seagrass meadows. Tuesday, November 29th from 09:30 - 11:30am.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8eTv866wAs

A tool to increase the utility of ocean observations

Life in the ocean is the focus for the major new EU project BioEcoOcean

https://www.uu.se/en/news/2023/2023-09-12-a-tool-to-increase-the-utility-of-ocean-observations

Lina Mtwana Nordlund

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