About the position

The Department of Biology has a vacancy for a PhD position in marine fish larval nutrition (aquaculture), starting as soon as possible.

The PhD candidate will be enrolled at the Department of Biology (IBI) at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, and the study will be organized as part of the PhD program at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at NTNU. The appointment is for three years, with the possibility of up to one-year extension with teaching duties in agreement with the department. The main supervisor for this PhD candidate will be professor Elin Kjørsvik at IBI (https://www.ntnu.no/ansatte/elin.kjorsvik).

The PhD position is funded by NTNU, and it is part of the NTNU aquaculture research projects related to Lipid Nutrition in Fish. You will work at NTNU Department of Biology within the Marine Science Group. The project will primarily be carried out at NTNU with possible periodic research stays at collaborating institutions.

The project background is that high production costs, variable growth, survival, and deformities are bottlenecks in marine fish juvenile production. Variability in juvenile quality may affect growth in sea cages and gives poor production predictability. Many of these problems can be attributed to suboptimal feeding during the larval stages. Despite the knowledge of the importance of dietary lipid composition, there is little information on the quantitative and qualitative requirements in larval and juvenile diets. Especially the phospholipids (PL) are important structural and functional components of cell membranes, brain and eye tissues, and larval stages are sensitive towards dietary PL deficiency.

Duties of the position

• The aim of the PhD project is to gain a deeper understanding of dietary lipid requirements in marine fish larvae and juveniles, with a focus on larval nutrition, phospholipid requirements, and digestive and growth processes. In pursuit of this aim, the PhD candidate’s project is based on:

  • nutritional experiments with fish larvae and juveniles

  • analytical work based on own experiments and analyses from previous experimental activity; using e.g. light and electron microscopy, stereology, molecular analysis (gene expression), behavior, biochemistry.

• You will be encouraged to have a research stay with a collaborating university outside Norway during the research period.