Brian Hayden

Academic interests

• Stable Isotope Ecology
• Aquatic Ecology
• Fish Biology

Brief biography

Dr. Brian Hayden is a Research Associate in the Biology Department where he leads the Stable Isotopes in Nature Laboratory. He received a PhD from University College Dublin in 2009, and undertook Post-Doctoral research at Queens University Belfast and University of Helsinki before joining the Department in 2014.

Brian is an aquatic ecologist with research interests ranging from invertebrates to mammals and from tropical streams to coastal marine ecosystems, albeit with a primary focus on the ecology of temperate freshwater fishes. He use stable isotopes, diet analyses and quantitative ecology to examine the trophic mechanisms through which climate and environmental change modify aquatic community structure and ecosystem function. This work is predominantly field based, but also includes Big Data techniques to identify the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem function at a global scale.

Brian’s research interests span the globe. He is actively involved in collaborations in Asia, South America, Europe. At UNB his research group is using stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen to examine the trophic ecology of American lobster populations in the Bay of Fundy and the marine ecology of Atlantic salmon. Further details are available through Google Scholar.

Courses taught

• BIOL2003 - Introduction to Ecology
• BIOL4393 - Trophic and Food Web Ecology

Selected research

Hayden, B., C. Harrod, S. M. Thomas, A. P. Eloranta, J.-P. Myllykangas, A. Siwertsson, K. Præbel, R. Knudsen, P.-A. Amundsen, and K. K. Kahilainen. (2019) From clear lakes to murky waters – tracing the functional response of high-latitude lake communities to concurrent ‘greening’ and ‘browning’. Ecology Letters 22 (5) 807–816.

Nielsen J., Clare E., Hayden B., Brett M. & Kratina P. (2017) Diet tracing in ecology: Method selection and comparison. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 9 (2) 278 - 291

Hayden B., Myllykangas J.-P., Rolls R. & Kahilainen K. (2017) Climate and productivity shape fish and invertebrate community structure in subarctic lakes. Freshwater Biology 62 (6) 990 - 1003

Hayden B., Harrod C., Soto D. & Newsome S. (Eds) 2017 Special Feature: Biomarkers in Trophic Ecology. Ecosphere

Pauli J., Newsome S., Cook J., Harrod C., Steffan S., Baker C., Ben-David M., Bloom D., Bowen G, Cerling T., Cicero C., Cook C, Dohm M., Dharampale P., Graves G., Gropp R., Hobson K., Jordan C., MacFadden B., Pilaar Birch S., Poelen J., Ratnasingham S., Russell L., Stricker C., Uhen M., Yarnes C., & Hayden B. (2017) Why we need a centralized repository for isotopic data. PNAS 114 (12) 2997-3001

Hayden B., McWilliam-Hughes S. & Cunjak R. (2016) Stable isotope analysis reveals limited trophic transfer of allochthonous derived energy in river food webs. Freshwater Science 35 (2) 544-558

Hayden B., Harrod C., Sonninen E. & Kahilainen K. (2015) Seasonal depletion of resources intensifies trophic interactions in subarctic freshwater fish communities. Freshwater Biology 60 1000-1015