Expertise and knowledge:
• Ungulate ecology. A main recurrent theme of my research is foraging ecology, life history and population ecology of large mammals, in particular ungulates. I am interested in how foraging ecology affect life history, and the feedback of life history back on foraging ecology. More recent specific themes are linked to partial migration of deer, and how human harvesting affects populations both directly through mortality, but also by changing behavioural ecology of rut indirectly affecting demography and by selective harvesting specifically removing particular phenotypes.
• Climate effect studies. I have worked extensively with climate effects on ecosystems. This includes specific studies on how ecology of large herbivores are affected as well as rodent population cycles, and I have also (co)authored several reviews on ecological effects of climate variation, one in Science (Stenseth, Mysterud et al. 2002) being awarded status as New Hot Paper (Jan. 2004) and Emerging Research Front (Aug. 2012) cited >1000 times.
• Ecosystem effects of grazing. Another major effort has been to run large scale experiments to study the whole suit of large herbivore grazing effects on ecosystems; from soil processes, plants, invertebrates, birds, small mammals and how changes in plant communities feedback on the herbivores. I am no longer active in this field.
• Ticks and tick-borne diseases. I am interested in how incidence of disease is dependent on the vertebrate host community, land use and climate.
I am currently being more and more involved in research within the field of disease ecology. I am particularly focused on chronic wasting disease in cervids. I am also interested in a wider range of pathogens and parasites of ungulates.
Norway