The history of the Section of chemical ecology and ecotoxicology at Lund University, and its research groups

The Department of ecology was formed 1985 from various departments and sub-departments (here called sections), with ecological activities. The Section of chemical ecology and ecotoxicology (shortened CEE) was formed in 1987 as splits from the Section of animal ecology and the Section of limnology.

CEE was housed mainly in the old ecology building at Helgonavägen 5 (inhabited by zoologists from 1970, later "becoming" ecologists). But parts of the staff was also earlier working at the Section of limnology at Fabriksgatan, close to the central train station.

In the autumn 1994 all ecologists in Lund moved into the newly constructed ecology building at Sölvegatan 37. The professor in ecotoxicology, Anders Södergren, was Head of the department of ecology (prefekt) both in the old ecology building and also in the new building the first years.

Göran Odham was Head of section CEE from the start 1987. He moved to Stockholm in 1997 when he was appointed professor at ITM.
Other long time employees were Peter Sundin, Gunilla Westerdahl, Annelie Göransson, Torsten Gunnarson, Lennart Okla and Göran Ewald quitting in the end of the 90's.

Juli 1, 1998, the pheromone research group moved from the Section of animal ecology to CEE. 26 persons moved, a doubling of the staff.
Professor Christer Löfstedt from the Pheromone group became the new Head of section CEE.

Juli 1, 2001, Bill Hansson in the Pheromone group was appointed professor at the Swed. Agric. Univ. at Alnarp west of Lund, and in September he and 7 others moved there. This was the second time the pheromone group was split, the first was 1994, when only half the group moved into the new ecology buiding, and the other half to Alnarp (Prof. Jan Löfqvist, Elisabeth Marling, Peter Anderson, Ylva Hillbur among others).

In February 2003 Anders Södergren retired.

In 2006 Katarina Hedlund moved from the Section of animal ecology to CEE, and was appointed Lektor the same year. She has now built up a new research group, the Soil ecology group, with PhD students and postdocs. In March 2009 she was appointed Professor.
Professor Olle Anderbrant took over from Christer Löfstedt as new Head of section of CEE in 2007.

Professor Per Larsson got a new position at Kalmar University College in 2007.

Maria Hansson moved from Animal ecology to CEE in the autumn 2008, and started up a new research group, Genetic ecotoxicology.

The ecotox website (www.ecotox.lu.se) started in 1996, and mastered by Per Woin, was closed 2005. The Pheromone group started a website already in September 1995 (Erling Jirle and Mats Svensson as webmasters) which still is running, first at www.pheromone.ekol.lu.se, then in 2011 at www.lu.se/o.o.i.s/pheromonegroup

A new CEE website (www.biol.lu.se/ekokem/) was launched in October 2001 by Erling Jirle. 2007 it moved to a web hotel at Lund University computer center (LDC) and changed URL to www.kem.ekol.lu.se.

1 january 2010 four departments were merged to form the new Department of biology. The four old which merged were; Ecology, COB (Cellular- and Organism Biology), Dept. of undergraduate studies in biology and the Botanical and Zoological museums. Prof. Christer Löfsstedt in the Pheromone group became new Head of department (prefekt).

During 2011 all the sections in the former departments of Ecology and COB were "dissolved", instead a number of new "administrative units" were formed. CEE was transferred into three of these: The Soil ecology group was transferred to the unit of Biodiversity, as was the genetic ecotoxicology group. The Pheromone group was transferred to the unit Functional zoology and the ecotoxicologists were transferred to Aquatic ecology (the former Limnology section).

1 january 2012 nothing remains of the former Section of chemical ecology and ecotoxicology.

Written by Erling Jirle, 31 Dec 2011.

If you are interested to dig deeper, here are some more pages:

List of Theses

Former staff at Chemical ecology/ecotoxicology

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