UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN

Department of
Biological Sciences

Professor, PhD (Vice Dean for Marine Research)
Øyvind Fiksen

Ecological mechanics and evolution

I work on plankton and fish, in particular their behaviour, life history, foraging, and predator-prey interactions. Recently, I have become interested in how the bottom topography influence how much plankton fish find and eat, and how the landscape below water contribute to the productivity of the ocean. I like research that are mechanistic, quantitative and driven by theory.

Environmental gradients in space and time create trade-offs between growth and survival, and organisms are well adapted to move along these slopes. Behavioural decisions have far-reaching consequences to for example recruitment processes and ecosystem functioning. As an example, both feeding success and death rates of a larval fish depends on its activity level and where in the water column it prefer to be. I find it intriguing to apply evolutionary models to predict where animals should be found in these gradients.

Fiksen Ø, Reglero P. 2022.
Atlantic bluefin tuna spawn early to avoid metabolic meltdown in larvae
Ecology. 103: e03568. [ doi:10.1002/ecy.3568 ] [ open access ] [ pdf ]
Ottmann D, Reglero P, Alemany F, Alvarez-Berastegui D, Martín M, Fiksen Ø. 2022.
Small fish eat smaller fish: A model of interaction strength in early life stages of two tuna species
Limnology and Oceanography Letters. 7: 227-234. [ doi:10.1002/lol2.10241 ] [ open access ] [ pdf ]
Fall J, Johannesen E, Englund G, Johansen GO, Fiksen Ø. 2021.
Predator-prey overlap in three dimensions: cod benefit from capelin coming near the seafloor
Ecography. 44: 802-815. [ doi:10.1111/ecog.05473 ] [ open access ] [ pdf ]
Aarflot J, Aksnes DL, Opdal AF, Skjoldal HR, Fiksen Ø. 2019.
Caught in broad daylight: topographic constraints of zooplankton depth distributions
Limnology and Oceanography. 64: 849-859. [ doi:10.1002/lno.11079 ] [ open access ] [ pdf ]
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