The team

Image: The CBE Arctic team. From the left – Tone Ulvatn (technician), Brenda L. Esteban Vazquez (PhD student), Mari H. Eilertsen (PI), Kristoffer F. Nilsen (master student) and Christian Nilsson (PhD student).

The CBE Arctic team is led by PI Mari H. Eilertsen. She is a researcher at the Department of Biological Sciences (BIO), University of Bergen, and part of the leader group of the Centre for Deep Sea Research.

Students

Brenda L. Esteban Vazquez is writing her PhD on diversity, adaptation and connectivity of gastropods in the family Rissoidae from Arctic CBEs. Research Gate.

Christian Nilsson is writing his PhD on community structure and functioning of worm-forest ecosystems at Arctic hydrothermal vents and cold seeps as part of the WormFEST project. ORCID.

Kristoffer F. Nilsen is writing his master thesis on the diversity, distribution and habitat specificity of Ophryotrocha from Arctic chemosynthesis-based ecosystems.

Alumni

Amalie Johannessen defended her MSc in January 2025 on the faunal communities of the Ægir vent field.

Anna Tomine R. Sørensen defended her MSc in July 2024 on the faunal communities of the Jan Mayen vent fields.

Marte L. B. Klemetsdal defended her thesis in 2023 on the fauna of deep cold seeps in the Arctic. She is currently doing a PhD at the Centre for Sustainable Area Management (CeSAM)

Haakon Arthur Pedersen defended his thesis in 2023 on fishes from hydrothermal vents and cold seeps along the AMOR.

Technichians

We work closely with several technicians at BIO who have specific competences that are crucial to the team. Tone Ulvatn manages our labs and the working collections, and also helps out with cruise planning and execution. David Rees helps out with DNA lab work, and is and expert on processing of (sometimes challenging) deep-sea fauna for DNA barcoding.

Broader scientific environment at UiB

The CBE Arctic team is part of the Deep-Sea Biology research group at the Department of Biological Sciences. We are also part of the multidiciplinary Centre for Deep Sea Research, where we work together with geologists, geochemists and microbiologists to explore and understand the deep-sea environment. The CBE Arctic team works closely with the Department of Natural History at the University Museum of Bergen (UMB), especially the Invertebrates Collection. UMB has important taxonomic expertise on several of the taxa we work on, and the samples we collect are incorporated into the UMB collections.