I'm Fanny, I am a PhD candidate working for COAT. Outside of the office you will likely find me on an adventure with my dog through all kinds of weathers, or at the cinema. I have been living in Tromsø for 5 years now and I am still teaching myself how to ski gracefully (which is taking me as much time as learning Norwegian), climb, paddle and I'm curious and up for most outdoor activities.

In my PhD project I am planning on looking at the variations in chemical content of tundra plants using NIRS (near infrared spectroscopy) on different scales (landscape, habitat, patch) to assess the quality of the resources available for reindeers, and ideally link that with the way they are using their habitat.

I’m Sofia and I just started my PhD journey at UiT working with COAT. I’m a passionate rock climber from Stockholm, who moved to Tromsø both for the exciting opportunity to do research in the arctic, but also for the amazing climbing possibilities you have here!

For my PhD, I’m investigating the resilience of mountain birch forests, focusing on how they recover after severe moth outbreaks. My research aims to identify the key factors driving successful regeneration in both birch and pine. A crucial aspect of my work involves exploring the role of mycorrhizal symbiosis—mutualistic interactions between fungi and tree roots—in supporting sapling survival. Additionally, I will evaluate the potential for pine trees to establish in areas where mountain birch forests have declined, which could offer new insights into how these ecosystems adapt to environmental stressors.

After growing up mostly in the Canarian islands, Spain, I moved to Tromsø, Norway and fell in love, particularly with the nature here. The outdoors have always inspired my curiosity in biology, and so it has been a great blessing to live in a place where I can see and touch what I work with every day. My masters was written in plant ecology, with some ECTS in freshwater ecology. This inspired my ambition towards getting a holistic understanding on the connectivity between these two habitats.

In my PhD project I will look into how terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems connect via the reciprocal flux of biomass, for example as emerging aquatic insects in spring and summer and as the downfall of senesced leaves in autumn. This ecosystem connectivity is described in temperate ecosystems, but is understudied in the Arctic. With a warming climate, the invasive dwarf shrub Empetrun nigrum is also becoming increasingly abundant. Higher temperatures are also leading to a heightened production of secondary metabolites of E. nigrum that have a documented detrimental effect on salmon alevins and zooplankton. I aim at closing the knowledge gap around how terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems are linked in Arctic ecosystems, as well as how transport of secondary metabolites from Empetrum nigrum (for example through the spring flood) may impact ecosystem functioning in streams. In this, my main focus is on aquatic insects and filamentous algae.

I 'm Tanguy and I'm quite interested in ecological interactions between animals, with a fondness for most mustelid species (except badgers). During my PhD, I will use both statistical and theoretical modelling to study prey-predator interactions. The first part of my project will be focused on golden eagle breeding success and prey availability (ptarmigans and rodents), and the second part will be focused on mustelid (stoats and weasels) and rodent (voles and lemmings) temporal and spatial dynamics.

My name is Stijn (don’t worry, you pronounce it as Stein..), and I am now in the 4^th year of my PhD project with COAT. You will mostly find me at the biology building at the university in Tromsø, but sometimes I am lucky enough to be out in the field with my foxes.

In my project we try to understand the ecology of red foxes on the arctic tundra. Red foxes are not really an Arctic species, but they are now common in many tundra ecosystems. We try to understand why by trapping and tracking red foxes on the tundra of Varanger Peninsula. The GPS collars we give them show us how they move and what kinds of habitats are food resources are important to them. For example, do they visit cabins and survive on trash from humans? Do they scavenge for dead animals on the coastline? Or do they mostly hunt along productive willow thickets?

We also use data from foxes that are shot by hunters to model the red fox population dynamics in our study area. This has shown that the population cycles of lemmings and voles have a big impact on survival and reproduction, but many foxes also immigrate into our study area from other populations.
This knowledge helps us to manage the red fox population in our study area and conserve an endangered population of arctic foxes that are being outcompeted by the red ones.

I come from a multidisciplinary background, with statistics and modeling always at the core of my academic interests. Having lived in the Arctic and become enchanted by its beauty, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to study and model the ecosystems around me.

The central objective of the research project is to develop and analyze models of seasonality effects on non-linear population dynamics. We focus on predator-prey interactions among key species in Fennoscandia, specifically rodent-mustelid interactions, and incorporate parameters that can be constrained by available observational data for improved estimation and prediction of future ecosystem dynamics.