Maj Rundlöf, PhD

My main research interest is in the combination of landscape ecology and conservation biology. In my research I work with biodiversity and ecosystem services and how these can be conserved and promoted in agricultural landscapes. During the PhD focus was on the influence of organic farming on farmland biodiversity, such as butterflies, bumblebees, birds and plants, and whether the effect of organic farming differs depending on landscape heterogeneity and proportion of organic farming at a landscape scale.

As a post doc the focus has shifted towards the services that the farmland biodiversity provides, mainly pollination and biological control. The majority of my post doc research has been conducted in the Clover project, on pollination and biological control in red clover seed production, but also in the Swedish project SAPES, on sustainable agriculture for biodiversity and ecosystem services, and the EU-project STEP (Status and Trends of European Pollinators). In the SAPES project results from the empirical work are used to for example model landscape determined pollination services. In the STEP project I am for example investigating measures to promote the insects, mainly honeybees, bumble bees and other wild bees, which perform the majority of the pollination service.

Suggested master thesis projects

CV

2010- Researcher at Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) Uppsala, Sweden
2008-2010 Post doc at Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) Uppsala, Sweden
2003-2007 PhD student at Department of Ecology, Lund University, Sweden

Research projects

Status and Trends of European Pollinators (STEP)

Control of pest insects in clover seed production using biological methods

Flower strips for pollinators

Pollination and pest control in clover (CLOVER) (finished)

The influence of large scale changes in production systems on birds and insects (finished)

Selected publications

Bommarco, R., Lundin, O., Smith, H.G., Rundlöf, M. Drastic historic shifts in bumble bee community composition in Sweden. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences (in press).

Kleijn, D., Rundlöf, M., Scheper, J., Smith, H.G., Tscharntke, T. 2011. Does conservation on farmland contribute to halting the biodiversity decline? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26: 474-481.

Rundlöf, M., Edlund, M., Smith, H.G. 2010. Organic farming at local and landscape scales benefits plant diversity. Ecography 33:514-522.

Rundlöf, M., Nilsson, H., Smith, H.G. 2008. Interacting effects of farming practice and landscape context on bumble bees. Biological Conservation 141:417-426.

Rundlöf, M., Smith, H.G. 2006. The effect of organic farming on butterfly diversity depends on landscape context. Journal of Applied Ecology 43:1121-1127.