Lunch lecture: Life of the lumpfish: from egg to ocean and back again

At this week’s lunch lecture, we are pleased to welcome James Kennedy, a fish biologist at the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute in Iceland. 

Lumpfish is a fish like no other which has been deemed worthy of depiction on the Icelandic 100 kr coin, but its lifecycle has long been a mystery. It would arrive in the coastal areas of Iceland to spawn in the spring/summer, spawn and leave. The young lumpfish, a few months after hatching, would also disappear from the coast not to be seen again until they return to spawn. Due to their non-streamlined shape and the presence of the ventral sucker it was thought that they would spend the intervening period in the deep sea, attached to the bottom, which is not the case. In contrast, lunpfish primarily spend their life in the upper layers of the water column (known as the pelagic zone), are distributed all across the north Atlantic Ocean, and are capable of swimming extensive distances. The talk will swim you through the life cycle of a lumpfish, from egg, out to the ocean and back again and what it eats along the away.

James Kennedy is a fish biologist at the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute in Iceland who primarily works on the biology of lumpfish, but is also involved in other species. He specializes in the reproductive biology of fish and has previously worked at the University of Bergen (Norway) and gained his PhD at the University of Liverpool while working at the Port Erin Marine Laboratory on the Isle of Man. James has supervised student projects at the University of Westfjords and teaches the Fisheries Ecology and Technology course.

The lunch lecture will be held in english

The presentation will take place in the cafeteria at the University Centre of the Westfjords and will start at 12:10.

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