CAnMove

During my PhD I will study so called nunataks, mountain tops that are surrounded by glacier, in southern part of the glacier Vatnajökull in Iceland. The focus will be on invertebrates.

Both flying insects as well as the invertebrates crawling on and in the soil are sampled. From the data set, community assembly on nunataks will be determined as well as food webs on recently emerged land. Dispersal abilities of invertebrates over the glacier are studied with the use of sticky traps that are placed on the nunataks, the glacier itself and on the glacier foreland. By comparing those traps it will be possible to determine whether the glacier is a barrier for invertebrate dispersal.

The PhD project is a collaboration between Lund University and Icelandic Institute of Natural History. My supervisor is Katarina Hedlund and Starri Heiðmarsson is co-supervisor.