Associate Professor, PhD

Øyvind Fiksen

Fish migrate long distances to spawn, zooplankton go up and down in the water column over the diel cycle and some go to rest at great depths from summer to spring. Why do animals behave as they do? Which evolutionary pressures have created the diversity of behaviours and survival strategies we see in nature? We know, as Darwin put it, that

"..these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by the laws acting around us."

What are these laws? How can we model behaviour and life history strategies? This are important questions, since growth and mortality depends very much on behaviour, therefore any model of population dynamics must account for behavioural flexibility. Our ability to realistically model behaviour of organisms are also critical to understand the impacts of human actions, climate change and fisheries.

For Master and PhD students, I can offer projects relevant to biological oceanography, population dynamics, predator-prey interactions, behaviour and life-history strategies in aquatic organisms. Useful background are oceanography, ecology, evolutionary theory, fisheries biology, marine biology or limnology, or even from mathematics and computer science.