Tom Langbehn

Tom Langbehn is a marine ecologist and "ocean-going modeller" with a keen interest in global change ecology, evolution, and sustainable fisheries. He is particularly fascinated by polar ecosystems, especially their extreme seasonality and how life thrives in the vast expanse and perpetual twilight of the mesopelagic zone, several hundred meters below the ocean surface.

Tom combines theory and modelling with observations and field experiments, often along gradients such as latitude, seasonality, or depth, to understand the mechanisms through which environments shape ecological processes and evolutionary adaptations. Central to his work is the role of light and vision in structuring pelagic ecosystems. In his models, behaviors and strategies emerge from linking physiology to life-history considerations, such as solving the trade-off between maximizing energy gain while reducing the risk of predation. This emergence allows him to uncover new or unseen individual patterns and their impacts on populations and ecosystems, now and in the future.

Tom holds a PhD from the University of Bergen, where he currently works as a researcher in the Theoretical Ecology Group within the Department of Biological Sciences.