PhD candidate Kanchana Bandara
Title of thesis:
Diel and seasonal vertical migrations of high-latitude zooplankton: knowledge gaps and a high-resolution bridge
Title of trial lecture:
Allometric scaling in marine ecosystem models - strengths and weaknesses.
Time of trial lecture: 10:15 - 11:15
Time of defence: 12:15 - 15:30
Place: Auditorium Petter Thomassen (A5)
Members of the evaluation committee:
- Professor Mark D. Ohman, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, USA
- Researcher Espen Strand, Research Group Plankton / Institute of Marine Research, Bergen
- Associate Professor Vigdis Tverberg, FBA, Nord university (leader)
Supervisory Committee:
Main supervisor: Professor Ketil Eiane, FBA
Co-supervisors:
- Professor Øystein Varpe, UNIS, Svalbard
- Associate Researcher Rubao Ji, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Department of Biology, Falmouth, USA
The PhD trial lecture and defence are open to the public. The thesis is available on request. Please contact Jeanett Stegen, email: jeanett.stegen@nord.no, phone: 75 51 74 49
About the thesis:
Toward a better
understanding of vertical migrations of high-latitude zooplankton: Periodic appearance and disappearance of zooplankton from surface
layers of lakes and oceans puzzled naturalists for many years. By the late-19th
century, undisputable evidence was brought forth to suggest that these patterns
are caused by zooplankton vertically migrating to deeper waters and back. Based
on the periodicity, two such migratory behaviors exist among high-latitude
zooplankton: the diel vertical migration and seasonal vertical migration.
Despite been a subject with a long research history, knowledge gaps still exist
about how these migrations are controlled, and how diel and seasonal vertical
migrations collectively influence growth, survival and reproductive tactics of
high-latitude zooplankton. Kanchana's thesis, titled “Diel and seasonal
vertical migrations of high-latitude zooplankton: knowledge gaps and a
high-resolution bridge” is an attempt to bridge these knowledge gaps using year-round
field data and high-resolution models.
Findings of the
study suggest that studying zooplankton vertical migrations in high-resolution
produces rich biological information about how vertical migrations are
regulated by the environmental variables. The high-resolution models employed
in this study further emphasized that predation risk has a greater influence on
vertical migrations than food availability or temperature.