Marine protected areas (MPAs) are often established for conservation objectives. Benefits provided by MPAs exceed pure biodiversity conservation as they may include contributions to social and economic benefits of local communities. And though it is still debated, MPAs may provide a management tool for sustainable fisheries and/or solving conflicts of interests between users of marine resources. It ...

<p>The focus of this thesis is on the economic performance and technical efficiency of a Vietnamese fishing fleet by the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA). The double bootstrap method has been used to overcome some of the limitations of DEA. In addition, the dissertation evaluates fishers’ perceptions of negative events affecting the fishing activities. <p>The first of three papers presents ...

<p>The research presented in this thesis has focused on the economic valuation of climate change impacts on ecotourism in a coastal wetland using three different methods of stated-preference techniques to provide answers to different research questions related to coastal tourism and climate change. Rekawa coastal wetland in Southern Sri Lanka was taken as the empirical context to examine the identified ...

The ice-covered seas of the Arctic have two major types of primary producers; phytoplankton growing in open waters and sea ice algae growing within and on the underside of the sea ice. This thesis investigates the controlling role of light availability on Arctic pelagic and sympagic (i.e. ice-associated) algae, and how light-induced responses are modulated by NO3 and pCO2 levels. A combination of ...

We have studied the innate immune responses of Atlantic salmon and how this responds to stimulation and infection by the aquatic orthomyxovirus Infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV). This work has focused on the Type I interferon (IFN) system which is critically important in the vertebrate immune response against viral infections. As a part of this work we have studied the Atlantic salmon IFN ...

Over the last decades, the abundances of many Atlantic salmon populations have declined drastically both due to anthropogenic and natural factors. The period when salmon enter the sea for the first time, starting as smolts in the river and subsequently as post-smolts in the fjord, is regarded as one of most critical periods in the salmon life history. In addition, salmon can also suffer from high ...

In tundra, the diversity within vascular plant communities (alpha diversity) is known to be determined by local drivers such as habitat productivity and ungulate grazing. However, little is known how such local drivers modify the diversity between communities (beta diversity). Furthermore, diversity patterns may be constrained by the size of the regional species pool, which in turn may mediate the ...

This thesis investigates the willingness of firms to cooperate on Research and Development (R&D). I present three papers concerning incentives to share/exchange knowledge created by the firms’ own R&D. It is my hope that this thesis can give some clues of how sharing and exchange of knowledge can contribute to an already large literature on Research and Development.

Even though the oceans occupy more than 70% of the earth’s surface and 95% of the biosphere (National Research Council, 2001), marine habitats have undergone a substantial decline over the last few decades, and most of which is attributable to fishing. In this regard, marine reserves or marine protected areas (MPAs) are proposed as tools to relieve stresses on marine resources and ecosystems. Despite ...