Many studies have been done on grandparental investment, asking why grandparents distribute their resources skewered. Maternal grandmothers invest most, and parental grandfathers invest least in their grandchildren. Here resemblance is used as an indicator of kin, asking if grandparents feel their grandchildren resemble them and looking at how they invest in these grandchildren. Daughters do not ...

Many artificial nest studies that goes over several years place the nests in the same location each placement. Over the years there is a chance that the predators learn where the nests are placed and that can give skewed results. The goal of my study is to see if the predators learn where the nests are located. This was done over three study sites on the Yamal peninsula. In two of the study sites ...

Barents Sea capelin (Mallotus villosus) year class strength is thought to be determined during the first months after egg hatching. The now widely accepted Hamre’s hypothesis states that young herring (Clupea harengus) present in the southern Barents Sea potentially may cause poor capelin recruitment. This hypothesis was presently tested through model scenarios, by simulating a realistic spatio-temporal ...

Southern elephant seals are abundant top trophic predators with a circumpolar distribution in the Southern Ocean. They spend up to 80% of their life at sea on long-ranging migrations to remote foraging grounds. During breeding and moulting they haulout on subantarctic islands. During these migrations they dive continuously to great depth, encountering various environmental conditions. They ...

The impact of Remote Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS, or drones) on marine mammals remains poorly documented despite their increasing use by hobbyists and scientists. In the High-Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard, where marine mammals are facing increasing pressure from the coupled effects of climate modification and an expanding tourism industry, the use of RPAS remains largely unregulated to date. In ...

Aquaculture worldwide is under constant scrutiny and financial pressure to maintain fish health, while providing an essential food source to a growing populace. To assist in monitoring mariculture sites and preventing harmful diseases, we tested a recently proposed method of trace pathogen detection using eDNA metabarcoding. The target pathogen, Paramoeba perurans, is the etiological agent of AGD, ...

The effect of body condition on the distribution and composition of 16 perfluoroalkylated substances (PFASs) in liver, blood, kidney, adipose tissue and muscle of Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) from Svalbard was investigated. Quantifiable concentrations of the PFASs were found in all samples (n=18). Overall, PFASs concentrations were highest in liver, followed by blood and kidney, while lowest ...

Over the last 20 years there has been a large change in the fish community structure in Lille Rostavatn, northern Norway. The relative contribution of the cold-water adapted fish species, Arctic charr (<i>Salvelinus alpinus</i>) and burbot (<i>Lota lota</i>), has distinctly decreased whereas the more temperate-adapted fish species, grayling (<i>Thymallus thymallus</i>) and brown trout (<i>Salmo ...

The aim of the study was to investigate if the Dileka-cell reduces bacterial survival in municipal drinking water in Tromsø, and if such an effect was found, also to discuss possible mechanisms involved in such an anti-bacterial effect. A pilot study was conducted first, followed by a series of 8 experiments (4 with Dileka and 4 without Dileka (control)). Since no documentation of active mechanisms ...

In this study the aim was to investigate how incubation temperature effected lumpsucker eggs and larvae; by comparing early cell symmetry, egg/embryo development, mortality, hatching success and early larvae size weight and histomorphology. Two batches of eggs were incubated at 3 temperature regimes; 1- Ambient seawater 4-6°C (cold), 2-Ambient seawater for 10 days then gradually increased to ...