ReseaRch Quality assuRance foR the futuRe a ... - Lund University

Panel 12 – science bio/geo
Overall this group has produced about 200 scientific papers per year.
During 2002–2007 the scientists have been involved in more than a
dozen Nature or Science papers.
There are several groups with a high publication record, and a strong profile
of their own. The animal movement group is at the very top internationally
in its own original area. Parts of the animal ecology also rank in this
group. The microbial ecology group has a strong original profile and an
excellent publication record. Others publish extensively, but with less of an
original Lund profile. Productivity overall is very good, quality ranges from
good to outstanding. The department has a low level of external recruitment
and scientists make few sabbatical or other long term visits. This poses a
threat for the vitality and renewal of the department.
At the level above the Department there is an expressed wish to merge the
Department of Ecology with Cell and Organism Biology. For two reasons,
we caution against a precipitate merger without the full agreement
of both Departments. First, the Departments themselves are still struggling
to deal with the consequences of previous mergers. Second, across
the world there is a trend for Biology Departments to divide into Cell and
Molecular on the one hand and Whole Organism on the other. Despite
its name, Cell and Organism is essentially Cell and Molecular while
Animal Ecology has the potential to be rebranded Whole Organism.
2.2 Research infrastructure
The department has outstanding infrastructure for the different types of
work. The specialty infrastructure, the wind tunnel, is a prerequisite for
high quality research output in one specialist area. The basic greenhouse
and animal growth facilities seem sufficient. The sequencing facility deals
with a rather low number of sequences annually. For work on non-model
organisms, in house facilities are useful. Chemical ecology also has
its specialty needs fulfilled. There is no mention of plans to use high
throughput sequencing methods for various research questions. This will
certainly be a need for the future – the actual sequencing could possibly
be from an outside (or at least university wide facility).
2.3 Research quality
Plant Ecology and Systematics papers are in general published in good
and very good specialist journals of the field. The research combines plant
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