Morten Tange Olsen

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My research takes a holistic approach to understand the ecology and evolution of marine mammals, using ancient, environmental and modern DNA analyses, museum collections and observations in the wild to study the effects of environmental change, pathogens, and human impacts.

I curate the marine mammal collection at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, teach marine mammal biology and research, and supervise multiple PhD, MSc and BSc student projects. 

Current research

Main research areas

Pinniped evolution and ecology

Beaked whale evolution and ecology

Marine mammal health and human interactions

Environmental and ancient DNA

 

PhD students

Xenia Weber - Prehistoric population structure and human utilisation of Atlantic walrus

Maiken Hemme Bro-Jørgensen - Colonisation and extinction of harp seals in the Baltic

Iben Stokholm - Zoonotic diseases in top predators

Dóra Székely - eDNA for beaked whale monitoring

 

MSc students

Sabine Sig Hansen - Beaked whale population genomics

Sascha Dreyer Nielsen - Beaked whale population genomics

Simon Norling - Grey seal population genomics

Ditte Elmgreen - Diet of North Sea grey seals

Sara Persson - Utility of seal scarers in salmon fisheries

 

BSc students

Sofie Bang - Harbour seal phylogeography

Stefanie Nielsen - Grey seal mitogenomes

Teaching

Marine Mammal Biology and Research (lecturer and course manager) https://kurser.ku.dk/course/NNMB15001U

Molecular Ecology (lecturer and co-manager)

Danmarks Fauna (guest lecturer)

Basic Arctic Biology (guest lecturer)

Arctic Field Course (guest lecturer)

Forensic Geobiology (guest lecturer)