In an interview with UiB, Tom Langbehn, researcher at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Bergen, and the Bjerknes Centre, says he hopes to uncover hidden trophic interactions in the ocean.
"One of my goals is to change the perception that the open ocean is a barren desert," he says.
Langbehn has been awarded a TMF Starting Grant from the Trond Mohn Foundation. This is a strategic recruitment initiative in collaboration with UiB, awarding the winners up to NOK 20 million in total, to establish their own research group.
In the project "Systematically rethinking advection and cross-ecosystem subsidies" he will investigate particularly nutrient-rich regions in the ocean. An interdisciplinary team of scientists – modelers, ecologists, taxonomists and oceanographers – will look into the mechanisms that determine when and where prey from the open ocean become available to predators.
Small fish the size of a finger hide in the twilight zones of the ocean. Despite their size, these fish account for 50 to 95 percent of the fish biomass in the sea.
In the cover of darkness these fish can stay high up in the water column during night, only to hide in deeper waters during the day. This way, they avoid being spotted by predators.
The strategy works as long as ocean currents do not carry the fish into shallower waters. There, their chance to seek darker zones when the sun illuminates the sea, diminishes. Small fish become food for bigger fish.
Tom Langbehn will investigate this phenomenon – where and when the small fish from the deep ocean becomes available for larger fish and animals higher up in the food chain, and what this means for marine life.
Read more about the project here.