I am undertaking the main component of my research at UiB within the research project "Worm forest ecosystems in Arctic hydrothermal vents and cold seeps" (WormFEST). Here, I will investigate how underlying environmental conditions taken from in-situ measurements of the worm-forests impact the forest's density and the morphology of the habitat-engineering worms. This in turn impacts other animals at the worm forests, therefore, I will also investigate how worm-forest communities are impacted by the forests' structure. Finally, I will reconstruct the structure of food-webs at worm-forests to find possible trophic interactions in these food-webs.

In my previous research, I've worked at the University of Gothenburg with material collected from the abyssal plains in the Clarion-Clipperton zone to describe a novel polychaete species found in high abundance on a wood-fall. Furthermore, I have also worked with the Swedish platform for subsea image analysis (SUBSIM) where I trained a computer-vision model to identify 17 megabenthic invertebrate taxa in the Kosterhavet National Park. This model was applied to 26 years of ROV footage of a subtidal rock wall to generate an occurrence-dataset that is now being used for various ecological analyses.

I'm very passionate about spreading the large amounts of knowledge relating to marine life that is currently hidden within the scientific community to the wider public. In Sweden, I worked at both the national science centre, Universeum and the University of Gothenburg's marine research station at Tjärnö where I've had the privilege to share some of the ocean's secrets from both near and far. Furthermore, I've also carried out presentations about the deep sea for both school classes and the wider public. Now, over my next four years as a PhD, I'm looking forward to help spread the word of marine life here in Bergen as well.

Nilsson, Christian L; Wiklund, Helena; Glover, Adrian G; Bribiesca-Contreras, Guadalupe; Dahlgren, Thomas G (2024). A new species of Erinaceusyllis (Annelida: Syllidae) discovered at a wood-fall in the eastern Clarion-Clipperton zone, central Pacific ocean. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 214, 104415.

Nilsson, Christian L; Anton, Victor; Burman, Emil; Germishuys, Jurie; Obst, Matthias (2024). Koster historical biodiversity assessment. GBIF.org. Occurrence dataset.

Nilsson, Christian; Germishuys, Jurie; Burman, Emil; Anton, Victor; White, Joel; Obst, Matthias (2024). Koster historical invertebrate model - SUBSIM 17tx. Zenodo.