Emil Kraft
About me
Before I started my PhD, I worked for 4.5 years in marine management at the County Administrative Board of Gävleborg. There, I became aware of many of the challenges and uncertainties that remain regarding the management of our aquatic ecosystems. This, in turn, sparked my interest in helping to solve these problems, and with this position within the FORCE project, I hope and believe that we will be able to assist Sweden's management of marine ecosystems with solid knowledge and support for the future.
My doctoral research focuses on changes over time in shallow ecosystems in the Baltic Sea and what may explain these shifts. The first part of the project will focus on broad studies of shallow food webs, where we compare data over a 5–10 year period by sampling fish of different sizes and ages, vegetation, benthic substrates, epifauna, plankton, nutrients, and more. Having such a broad and detailed dataset on coastal bays over an extended period affords us an unique opportunity to test many different hypotheses about what drives changes in these ecosystems. However, the main focus will be on investigating the effects of protection measures and fishing closures on these ecosystems, as well as the impact of predation by seals and cormorants on large predatory fish, which play key roles in these systems. The ultimate goal of these projects is to provide data that can lead to improved management of shallow marine ecosystems.
By using time-series data from environmental monitoring of macroalgae and epifauna, we will also investigate changes in the epifauna community of bladderwrack within the project. These time-series span a longer time frame, from 1992 to 2016, and allow us to examine and track the effects of larger and more long-term changes such as increased temperature and changes in nutrient loading on the epifauna community. We will investigate these changes both through abundance analyses and through isotope analyses to track potential shifts in prey choice.
