How Does Climate Change Affect Plants and Animals in Lakes Around the World?

That is the topic for Tobias Kuhlmann Andersen’s PhD project where he is studying how fish and underwater plants react to rising temperatures. He aims at improving a special lake model, which describes the most important parts of a lake ecosystem, e.g. algae, crustaceans and oxygen.

‘In Denmark, we are lucky because we have had a lake monitoring programme for the last 30 years and the data collected make it possible for me to predict the future health of Danish lakes’, Tobias Kuhlmann Andersen explains.

To predict the consequences of climate change in Danish lakes, it is necessary to compare with

lakes in warmer climates. In this case, it is obvious to collect data from Chinese lakes.

‘Being a foreign researcher, it can be complicated to collect data. It is necessary to have Chinese

collaborators to access data in China the right way’, Tobias Kuhlmann Andersen says.

He received invaluable feedback when he gave his opening speech in connection with the First Forum on Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration and Health at SDC:

‘To be honest I was quite surprised about the amount of feedback I got. The forum made it possible for me to get feedback from researchers that otherwise would not have been able to attend my opening speech. It was especially in relation to the Chinese data collection that I got useful advice on how to best continue’.

Tobias Kuhlmann Andersen expects to obtain his double PhD degree from Aarhus University and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2021.