Networking Fridays
Marine Biodiversity Networking Friday: Modelling the living ocean
Data
September 11, 2026, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM UTC
PróximoAIR Centre Networking Fridays
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Link para a transmissão em diretoHow can ecosystem modelling help understand and predict the changing ocean? This session brings together two complementary perspectives from the BioEcoOcean EU-funded project, exploring how marine ecosystem models can connect biological processes across scales and improve our understanding of ocean change.
Andre Visser examines the biological carbon pump and functional diversity, using a trait-based modelling approach to investigate how global change may alter the functioning of marine ecosystems, with a particular focus on changing phytoplankton communities in high-latitude seas. It also looks ahead to the challenge of bringing these ecological insights into Earth System Models.
Antoine Laforge moves through the pelagic food web, from primary production and zooplankton to micronekton and sea turtles. By coupling oceanographic information with ecosystem and individual-based models, it demonstrates how modelling can link lower-trophic level processes to the movement and dispersal of marine animals, while also highlighting future perspectives and sources of uncertainty.
Together, the talks showcase the breadth of BioEcoOcean modelling, illustrating how different modelling approaches can help reveal the connections between ocean physics, ecosystem functioning, carbon cycling and marine biodiversity-and how these tools can contribute to a more integrated understanding of a changing ocean.
Programa · UTC
Oradores
Andre W. Visser
Professor, National Institute for Aquatic Resources (DTU Aqua), Technical University of Denmark, DK
Andre Visser is professor of physical oceanography at DTU and works extensively at the interface between the physics and biology of the oceans. Over a 30-year career, he has worked on topics ranging from turbulence and shelf-sea dynamics to vertical migration and trait-based ecology, often developing mathematical models to describe the various processes involved. In recent years he has focused on the biological carbon pump, its role in the global carbon cycle and its potential to mitigate climate change.
Antoine Laforge
Engineer, Mercator Ocean International (MOi), FR
Antoine Laforge is a marine ecosystem research engineer at Mercator Ocean International, with a background in Earth observation and computer science from ISEA-Supaero. He began his career working four years in altimetry applied to sea ice thickness estimation, before transitioning to marine ecosystem modelling — specializing in sea turtle movement, open-ocean navigation, demographic studies, and spatial ecology. He now focuses on improving sea turtle habitat modelling by refining the prediction and distribution of gelatinous organisms.
Sakina‑Dorothée Ayata
Associate Professor, Sorbonne University/LOCEAN
Sakina‑Dorothée Ayata is an associate professor (maîtresse de conférences, HDR) in marine ecology at Sorbonne Université, based at the LOCEAN laboratory in Paris. A marine ecologist and numerical oceanographer, she works at the interface between the observation and modelling of ocean life. Trained in biology, ecology and computer science at the École normale supérieure in Paris, she has studied the larval dispersal and connectivity of marine invertebrates and the effects of phytoplankton stoichiometry and photoacclimation on ocean primary production, combining biophysical modelling, in situ observation and statistical analysis. Since 2020 she has co‑led the FORMAL project‑team (From Observing to Modelling Ocean Life) at Sorbonne Université's Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, and her work has recently expanded to genomics and next‑generation sequencing for plankton.
