Villy Christensen is an

ecosystem model An ecosystem model is an abstract, usually mathematical, representation of an ecological system (ranging in scale from an individual population, to an ecological community, or even an entire biome), which is studied to better understand the r ...

ler with a background in

fisheries science Fisheries science is the academic discipline of managing and understanding fisheries. It is a multidisciplinary science, which draws on the disciplines of limnology, oceanography, freshwater biology, marine biology, meteorology, conservation, ...

. He is known for his work as a project leader and core developer of

Ecopath Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) is a free and open source ecosystem modelling software suite, initially started at NOAA by Jeffrey Polovina, but has since primarily been developed at the formerly UBC Fisheries Centre of the University of British Colum ...

, an ecosystem modelling software system widely used in

fisheries management The management of fisheries is broadly defined as the set of tasks which guide vested parties and managers in the optimal use of aquatic renewable resources, primarily fish. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation ...

. Ecopath was initially an initiative of the

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploratio ...

, but since primarily developed at the UBC Fisheries Centre of the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

. In 2007, it was named as one of the ten biggest scientific breakthroughs in NOAA's 200-year history. The citation states that Ecopath "revolutionized scientists' ability worldwide to understand complex marine ecosystems".

Biography

Christensen did his Ph.D. under Sven Erik Jørgensen at

Copenhagen University The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public research university in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. The University of Copenhagen c ...

. Jeffrey Polovina initiated the Ecopath approach in the early 1980s. Christensen, along with

Daniel Pauly Dr. Sir Daniel Pauly is a France, French-born marine biologist, well known for his work in studying human impacts on global fisheries and in 2020 was the most cited fisheries scientist in the world. He is a professor and the project leader of the ...

and others, has been involved in the subsequent development of Ecopath since 1990. Christensen currently facilitates international workshops on Ecopath around the world. He is a professor at the UBC Fisheries Centre at the

, specialising in

ling. His main project is with the Sea Around Us Project working on "database-driven ecosystem model construction", with the aim of using "global, spatial databases to parameterize, balance and fit ecosystem models".Dr Villy Christensen
UBC web site. Retrieved 17 June 2009. This work includes developing a dynamic exchange model of

biomass Biomass is a term used in several contexts: in the context of ecology it means living organisms, and in the context of bioenergy it means matter from recently living (but now dead) organisms. In the latter context, there are variations in how ...

over time in the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...

area, as well as how

marine protected area A marine protected area (MPA) is a protected area of the world's seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity ...

s can be optimally positioned. He is also director of the Lenfest Ocean Futures Project, where a visualization system is being developed to support decision making in ecosystem-based fisheries management. This system combines

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer (from Latin ''mixus, the PPP of miscere eng. to Mix)'' or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary ...

, a 3D-gaming engine, with

.Ocean Summits and Virtual Fish: Games for a Sustainable Future
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Selected papers

* Wilson RW, Millero FJ, Taylor JR, Walsh PJ, Christensen V, Jennings S and Grosell M (2009
"Contribution of Fish to the Marine Inorganic Carbon Cycle"
''Science'', 323 (5912) 359–362. (This article provides a first estimate of global fish biomass) *

Pauly D Paul Michael DelVecchio Jr. (born July 5, 1980), known as Pauly D and DJ Pauly D, is an American television personality and disc jockey, DJ. He is best known for being a cast member of MTV's reality show ''Jersey Shore (TV series), Jersey Shore' ...

, Christensen V, Dalsgaard J, Froese R and Torres F (1998
"Fishing down marine food webs"
''Science'', 279: 860–863. * Pauly D and Christensen V (1995
"Primary production required to sustain global fisheries"
''Nature'' 374(6519): 255–257. * Christensen V (1996) tp://ftp.fisheries.ubc.ca/v.christensen/Publications/Christensen_top_predators_RiFBaF_1996.pdf "Managing fisheries involving top predator and prey species components"Review in ''Fish Biology and Fisheries'', 6:417-442. (First published description of "

fishing down the food web Fishing down the food web is the process whereby fisheries in a given ecosystem, "having depleted the large predatory fish on top of the food web, turn to increasingly smaller species, finally ending up with previously spurned small fish and in ...

" concept) * Christensen V (1995) tp://ftp.fisheries.ubc.ca/v.christensen/Publications/Christensen_Maturity_EM_1995.pdf "Ecosystem maturity - towards quantification"''Ecological Modelling'', 77: 3-32. * Christensen V and Pauly D (1992) tp://ftp.fisheries.ubc.ca/v.christensen/Publications/Christensen_EcopathII_EM1992.pdf "ECOPATH II - A software for balancing steady-state ecosystem models and calculating network characteristics"''Ecological Modelling'', 61:169-185. (Third-most cited paper in this journal)
Refereed publications

Non-refereed publications

Books and reports

Notes

External links

Dr Villy Christensen
UBC web site.
Animated documentary on Chesapeake Bay

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Christensen, Villy 20th-century Canadian zoologists Living people Fisheries scientists Year of birth missing (living people) Academic staff of the University of British Columbia 21st-century Canadian zoologists

Biography

Selected papers

See also

Notes

External links