Lina Mtwana Nordlund

Uppsala University | UU · Department of Earth Sciences

Analysing gender in small-scale fisheries (SSF) is vital for understanding the contributions of women and men and detecting potential inequalities. In this study, the shelled mollusc fishery was examined through the gender lens using quantitative and qualitative data collected from 132 shelled mollusc fishers accross five sites in coastal Kenya. In...

It is widely recognized that humanity is currently facing multiple planetary crises, including the widespread loss of biodiversity and a rapidly changing climate. The impacts of these crises are often far reaching and threaten food security (SDG goal two: zero hunger). Small-scale fisheries are estimated to provide livelihoods for over one hundred...

Invertebrate gleaning is a small-scale fishery that commonly occurs in the intertidal zone across the tropical Indo-Pacific. In this study, we investigated and analyzed several components of this fishery on the island of Unguja, Zanzibar by employing the social-ecological systems framework from Ostrom 2009. In doing so, we conducted ecological surv...

Conserving biodiversity with a growing human population is a key sustainability challenge. Consequently, a vast number of development initiatives across the globe have been designed to combine social, economic, and environmental perspectives. For the most part, the development community is well acquainted with the negative experiences and unintende...

Seagrass meadows, like other tropical coastal ecosystems, are highly productive and sustain millions of people worldwide. However, the factors that govern the use of seagrass as a fishing habitat over other habitats are largely unknown, especially at the household scale. Using socioeconomic factors from 147 villages across four countries within the...

This study provides an overview of the multi-sectoral coastal aquaculture development in Zanzibar (Tanzania) over the last thirty years based on empirical evidence from interviews, field observations, policy reports and literature reviews. Despite the immense potential of aquaculture for food and livelihoods, only seaweed farming has so far establi...

Seagrasses – a group of foundation species in coastal ecosystems – provide key habitat for diverse and abundant faunal assemblages and support numerous ecosystem functions and services. However, whether the habitat role of seagrasses is influenced by seagrass diversity, by dominant species or both, remains unclear. To that end, we sought to investi...

There is limited documentation on the status and dynamics of fished marine shelled mollusc species in many countries. Some of the challenges are due to obscure documentation of species, extensive unregulated and unrecorded fishing and unawareness of drivers behind declining stocks. The lack of understanding makes it difficult to formulate effective...

Seagrass meadows globally are under pressure with worldwide loss and degradation, but there is a growing recognition of the global importance of seagrass ecosystem services, particularly as a major carbon sink and as fisheries habitat. Estimates of global seagrass spatial distribution differ greatly throughout the published literature, ranging from...

In a changing environment, there is an increasing interest to monitor ecosystems to understand their responses to environmental change. Seagrass meadows are highly important ecosystems that are under constant pressure from human activities and climate impacts, with marked declines observed worldwide. Despite increasing efforts, monitoring of multis...

This study is the first large‐scale genetic population study of a widespread climax species of seagrass, Thalassia hemprichii, in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO). The aim was to understand genetic population structure and connectivity of T. hemprichii in relation to hydrodynamic features. We genotyped 205 individual seagrass shoots from 11 sites acr...

In developing countries where data and resources are lacking, the practical relevance of local ecological knowledge (LEK) to expand our understanding of the environment, has been highlighted. The potential roles of the LEK varies from direct applications such as gathering environmental information to a more participative involvement of the communit...

Seagrasses, flowering marine plants that form underwater meadows, play a significant global role in supporting food security, mitigating climate change and supporting biodiversity. Although progress is being made to conserve seagrass meadows in select areas, most meadows remain under significant pressure resulting in a decline in meadow condition a...

Tropical coral reefs are threatened and in decline, and their future is highly uncertain. With increasing rates of climate change and rising global temperatures, people looking to coral reefs for food and income may increasingly have to rely on resources from other habitats. Efforts to protect and conserve the coral reefs we have left are critical...

The significant role seagrass meadows play in supporting fisheries productivity and food security across the globe is not adequately reflected in the decisions made by authorities with statutory responsibility for their management. We provide a unique global analysis of three data sources to present the case for why seagrass meadows need targeted p...

Globally, seagrass ecosystems are considered major blue carbon sinks and thus indirect contributors to climate change mitigation. Quantitative estimates and multi-scale appraisals of sources that underlie long-term storage of sedimentary carbon are vital for understanding coastal carbon dynamics. Across a tropical–subtropical coastal continuum in t...

Global marine seaweed aquaculture is growing rapidly. In Zanzibar, Tanzania, seaweed farming, primarily conducted by women, is the main coastal aquaculture activity. Many types of aquaculture are linked to a specific ecosystem (e.g. shrimp-mangrove), and understanding if such a coupling exists for seaweed farming important for further development....

Seagrass meadows support fisheries through provision of nursery areas and trophic subsidies to adjacent habitats. As shallow coastal habitats, they also provide key fishing grounds; however, the nature and extent of such exploitation are poorly understood. These productive meadows are being degraded globally at rapid rates. For degradation to cease...

Seagrasses, marine flowering plants, provide a wide range of ecosystem services, defined here as natural processes and components that directly or indirectly benefit human needs. Recent research has shown that there are still many gaps in our comprehension of seagrass ecosystem service provision. Furthermore, there seems to be little public knowled...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0163091.].

Threats to and loss of seagrass ecosystems globally, impact not only natural resources but also the lives of people who directly or indirectly depend on these systems. Seagrass ecosystems play a multi-functional role in human well-being, e.g. food through fisheries, control of erosion and protection against floods. Quantifying these services reveal...

How do you, as a university lecturer, change from teacher-centered teaching to a more student-centered, active teaching? This paper aims to inspire you to make a change, big or small, to increase your students’ engagement and learning, by presenting suggestions on what you can do. The ideas and suggestions synthesized here are based on several diff...

This expert opinion study examined the current status of the intertidal zone in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) and ranked and discussed future management approaches. Information was gathered from scientists, practitioners, and managers active in the WIO region through a questionnaire and a workshop. The experts stated that the productive intertidal...

Seagrass beds are highly important for tropi- cal ecosystems by supporting abundant and diverse fish assemblages that form the basis for artisanal fisheries. although a number of local- and regional-scale variables are known to influence the abundance, diversity and assemblage structure of seagrass-associated fish assemblages, few studies have eval...

Medium-scale land cover maps are traditionally created on the basis of a single cloud-free satellite scene, leaving information present in other scenes unused. Using 1309 field observations and 20 cloud- and error-affected Landsat scenes covering Zanzibar Island, this study demonstrates that the use of multiple scenes can both allow complete covera...

The intertidal zone in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) provides several important ecosystem services, but the intertidal is experiencing an accelerating loss of habitats and biodiversity, due to among other factors, an increasing human population, overexploitation of resources, poverty and the pressures of economic development. The major aim of this...

We tested the utility of IKONOS satellite imagery to map seagrass distribution and biomass in a 4.1 km2 area around Chumbe Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Considered to be a challenging environment to map, this area is characterized by a diverse mix of inter- and subtidal habitat types. Our mapped distribution of seagrasses corresponded well to field d...

Seagrass meadows support high biodiversity and are important for invertebrate harvesting activities in developing countries. The aim of this study was to estimate the social and ecological effects of invertebrate harvesting, i.e. how this exploitation may affect/has affected seagrass variables (biomass, shoot density and canopy height), macrofaunal...