Björn Illing

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Thünen Institute of Fisheries Ecology

Biography

I am a marine biologist with a broad interest in physiology, ecology, conservation, and aquaculture. Most of my research focuses on how environmental stress affects fishes, particularly their early life stages.

I currently work as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Thünen Institute of Fisheries Ecology in Bremerhaven, Germany. In previous postdoctoral research stays, funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Research Foundation (DFG), I worked with partners at the ARC Centre of Coral Reef Science (James Cook University) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) in Townsville, Australia.

Kophamel et al 2021

Importance of health assessments for conservation in noncaptive wildlife

Conservation Biology

Illing et al 2021

Automated swimming performance measurements in small fishes

Conservation Physiology

Illing et al 2020

Heat tolerance in early life stages of tropical fishes

Journal of Thermal Biology

Moyano et al 2020

Linking physiological indicators to the productivity of fish populations

Ecological Indicators

Downie et al 2020

Swimming performance of marine fish larvae: a review

Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries

Curriculum vitae

Interests

Aquatic ecophysiology
Environmental science
Conservation
Aquaculture

Education

Doctor of Natural Sciences

University of Hamburg, 02/2016
Diploma (MSc equivalent) in Biology

University of Hamburg, 12/2009

Skills

R

Statistics

Data visualization

Microsoft Office

Latex

Media editing

Recent Publications

Quickly discover content by filtering publications.

Importance of health assessments for conservation in noncaptive wildlife

Wildlife health assessments help identify populations at risk of starvation, disease, and decline from anthropogenic impacts on natural habitats. In this study, we systematically reviewed the available literature on noncaptive vertebrates, and quantified trends in study design and diagnostic methods across taxa. To improve future studies, we devised a conceptual framework to strategically integrate health assessments in population monitoring.

Sara Kophamel, Björn Illing, Ellen Ariel, Morgan Difalco, Lee F. Skerrat, Mark Hamann, Leigh C. Ward, Diana Méndez, Suzanne L. Munns

Importance of health assessments for conservation in noncaptive wildlife

Automated flow control of a multi-lane swimming chamber for small fishes indicates species-specific sensitivity to experimental protocols

Measuring swimming performance of small fishes contributes to a better understanding of how environmental factors affect individual organisms and potentially populations dynamics (e.g., through variable dispersal and connectivity). Here, we automated multi-lane swimming chambers to reduce operator interference and optimize swimming performance measurements of early life stages of fishes. Testing different experimental protocols, we found species-specific sensitivities in offspring from two tropical fishes.

Björn Illing, Andrea Severati, Justin Hochen, Paul Boyd, Paulin Raison, Rachel Mather, Adam T. Downie, Jodie L. Rummer, Frederieke J. Kroon, Craig Humphrey

Automated flow control of a multi-lane swimming chamber for small fishes indicates species-specific sensitivity to experimental protocols

Parasite infection directly impacts escape response and stress levels in fish

In this study we found that micropredation by a single parasite (gnathiid isopod) significantly decreased escape performance and swimming behaviour of coral reef fish juveniles. However, stress hormone (cortisol) levels doubled. These findings suggest that micropredation may affect the overall fitness of juvenile fish hosts, which may result in large scale changes in the number of fish succesfully recruiting to adult populations on coral reefs.

Bridie J.M. Allan, Björn Illing, Eric P. Fakan, Pauline Narvaez, Alexandra S. Grutter, Paul C. Sikkel, Eva C. McClure, Jodie L. Rummer, Mark I. McCormick

Parasite infection directly impacts escape response and stress levels in fish

Linking individual physiological indicators to the productivity of fish populations: A case study of Atlantic herring

Here we investigated whether the decreasing annual productivity (i.e. larval abundances) of Baltic Sea herring over the last decade is linked to warmer springs exceeding the physiological optimum of early life stages. Linking physiological thermal tolerance and recruitment indexes from the field, we found that warming is at least partially responsible for the steady decline in recruitment.

Marta Moyano, Björn Illing, Patrick Polte, Paul Kotterba, Yury Zablotski, Tomas Gröhsler, Patricia Hüdepohl, Steven J. Cooke, Myron A. Peck

Linking individual physiological indicators to the productivity of fish populations: A case study of Atlantic herring

Critical thermal maxima of early life stages of three tropical fishes: Effects of rearing temperature and experimental heating rate

In this study, we showed that critical thermal maxima differ across species and life stages in tropical fishes. Furthermore, body mass and experimental heating rate had a strong influence on the measured thermal tolerance. This suggests that these factors need to be accounted for when estimating and comparing heat tolerance across early ontogeny in tropical fishes.

Björn Illing, Adam T. Downie, Mahaut Beghin, Jodie L. Rummer

Critical thermal maxima of early life stages of three tropical fishes: Effects of rearing temperature and experimental heating rate

See all publications

Public

Twitter

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Press & Media

The Company of Biologists - stories “Paying it forward” 03.11.2017

Outreach

Editorial member of Conservation Physiology in Action (since 2017), providing short lay summaries of research articles.
Organized three local Beneath the Waves film festivals (2013-2015) in collaboration with Deepwave and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Hamburg (Germany). Deepwave, a non-profit organization for the protection of the seas, continues these events.

Beneath the Waves film festival Hamburg. Image credit: [Thomas Berroth](http://www.thomasberroth.de/) — Beneath the Waves film festival Hamburg. Image credit: Thomas Berroth