Carl Johan Svensson,^* Anders Eriksson,^** Tero Harkonen,^*** Karin C. Harding<sup>****

*</sup>Carl Johan Svensson () is a researcher at the Department of Marine Ecology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research interests include population dynamics and ecology of marine plants and animals. Address: Department of Marine Ecology, Gothenburg University, Box 461, SE-405 31 Gothenburg, Sweden. e-mail: carl-johan.svensson@marecol.gu.se
^**Anders Eriksson is a researcher at the Department of Energy and Environment, Chalmers University, Sweden. Within the field of ecology his research interests include genetic modeling, spatial ecology and population dynamics of seals. Address: Division of Physical Resource Theory, Department of Energy and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden. e-mail: anders.eriksson@chalmers.se
^***Tero Harkonen is an Associate Professor and a senior scientist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Sweden. He runs projects on epidemiology, population dynamics and management of seals in the Baltic, the Caspian Sea and the Antarctic. Address: Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden. e-mail: tero.harkonen@nrm.se
^****Karin C. Harding is an Associate Professor at the Department of Marine Ecology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is coordinating the inter-disciplinary Centre for Theoretical Biology at the University of Gothenburg. Her research interests include epidemiology, population dynamics and spatial ecology. Address: Department of Marine Ecology, Gothenburg University, Box 461, SE-405 31 Gothenburg, Sweden. e-mail: karin.harding@marecol.gu.se