Area of Expertise:
Dr Christensen is a professor at the University of British Columbia specialising in ecosystem modelling—in particular data-driven ecosystem model construction. He is known for his work as a leader and developer of the Ecopath project an ecosystem modelling software system widely used in fisheries management. His recent publications have described global ocean models, studied global fish biomass trends, and outlined new habitat capacity models.
Some Key research highlights are listed below:
- 2011: A study presented at AAAS2011 found that the world’s predatory fish have declined by 2/3 over the last hundred years while prey fish have more than doubled.
- 2008: Integration of ecological and value modeling: value chain approach integration in EwE
- 2009: Co-author of study of fishes contribution to the marine in organic carbon cycle (Science2009) providing a first estimate of global fish biomass.
- 2006: Leading development of new EwE6, including coupling to 3D-gaming engine for visualization, design of decision-support system, single-player game, and videos.
Select Presentation(s) / Publication(s):
Walters, William J. and Villy Christensen. 2018. Ecotracer: Analyzing concentration of contaminants and radioisotopes in an aquatic spatial-dynamic food web model. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity181 118–127.
Teh, Louise SL, William WL Cheung, Villy Christensen, and U. R. Sumaila. 2018. Can we meet the Target? Status and future trends for fisheries sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability29 118–130.
Christensen, Villy, Marta Coll, Joe Buszowski, William Cheung, Thomas Frölicher, Jeroen Steenbeek, Charles A. Stock, Reg Watson, and Carl J. Walters. 2015. The global ocean is an ecosystem: simulating marine life and fisheries. Global Ecology and Biogeography24 507–517.
