My research has mainly focused on fish and acoustic communication and how noise from boats affects this. In my current research, we have scaled up the trials from controlled lab experiments to studying wild fish in both lake and sea. By tagging fish with acoustic transmitters, we can see how fish respond to noise, we can see how the fish moves and at what speed it swims. We are also aiming to find new acoustic harassment devices to protect the small-scale fishing activities but also to protect areas with sensitive fish populations, like cod, against seal attacks.
I hope to contribute with solutions to protect fish and aquatic mammals from noise and make people aware of how our marine inhabitants are affected by our activities. Just because you don't hear noise under the surface doesn't mean it isn't there.
Sexual signalling and noise pollution in the sea -implications for courtship behaviour and reproductive success in two vocal species of gobies. Doctoral thesis 2017
Andersson, M., Svensson, O., Swartz, T., Manera, J. L., Bertram, M. G., & Blom, E. L. (2023). Increased noise levels cause behavioural and distributional changes in Atlantic cod and saithe in a large public aquarium—A case study. Aquaculture, Fish and Fisheries.
Blom, E. L., Wilson, J. R., Kvarnemo, C., Amorim, M. C. P., & Svensson, O. (2022). Male acoustic display in the sand goby–Essential cue in female choice, but unaffected by supplemental feeding. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 556, 151791.
Bose, A. P., McCallum, E. S., Avramović, M., Bertram, M. G., Blom, E. L., Cerveny, D., ... & Brodin, T. (2022). Pharmaceutical pollution disrupts the behavior and predator-prey interactions of two widespread aquatic insects. Iscience, 25(12), 105672.
Eva-Lotta Blom, Charlotta Kvarnemo, Isabelle Dekhla, Sofie Schold, Mathias H. Andersson, Ola Svenson and Marie Clara. P. Amorim: Continuous and intermittent noise has a negative impact on reproductive success in a marine fish with paternal care.
Nature, Scientific reports 9.1 (2019): 5494.
Eva-Lotta Blom, Isabel Muck, Katja Hubel, Ola Svensson.: Courtship sound and associated behaviours of two sympatric marine Gobiidae species – Pomatoschistus microps and Pomatoschistus minutus. Journal of Environmental Biology of Fishes, 99(12), 999-1007 DOI 10.1007/s10641-016-0551-5
Olsson, K. H., Johansson, S., Blom, E. L., Lindström, K., Svensson, O., Nilsson Sköld, H., & Kvarnemo, C. (2017). Dark eyes in female sand gobies indicate readiness to spawn. PLoS One, 12(6), e0177714.