A total of ten tree-ring chronologies of Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris L., was constructed between the Vesterålen archipelago and the Finnmarksvidda in order to investigate the regional variability of radial growth and climate response of pine. The longest tree-ring chronology, located in Forfjorddalen in Vesterålen, was highly significant back to AD 1354. The study area was divided into three ...

How new species are formed is still a major question in evolutionary biology. In ecological speciation, natural selection drives the evolution of slight distinctions between individuals into extensive differences between species. In this thesis, early stages of an ecologically driven speciation process are addressed using ecological and morphological data from a large number of European whitefish ...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are often established for conservation objectives. Benefits provided by MPAs exceed pure biodiversity conservation as they may include contributions to social and economic benefits of local communities. And though it is still debated, MPAs may provide a management tool for sustainable fisheries and/or solving conflicts of interests between users of marine resources. It ...

<p>The focus of this thesis is on the economic performance and technical efficiency of a Vietnamese fishing fleet by the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA). The double bootstrap method has been used to overcome some of the limitations of DEA. In addition, the dissertation evaluates fishers’ perceptions of negative events affecting the fishing activities. <p>The first of three papers presents ...

<p>The research presented in this thesis has focused on the economic valuation of climate change impacts on ecotourism in a coastal wetland using three different methods of stated-preference techniques to provide answers to different research questions related to coastal tourism and climate change. Rekawa coastal wetland in Southern Sri Lanka was taken as the empirical context to examine the identified ...

The ice-covered seas of the Arctic have two major types of primary producers; phytoplankton growing in open waters and sea ice algae growing within and on the underside of the sea ice. This thesis investigates the controlling role of light availability on Arctic pelagic and sympagic (i.e. ice-associated) algae, and how light-induced responses are modulated by NO3 and pCO2 levels. A combination of ...

We have studied the innate immune responses of Atlantic salmon and how this responds to stimulation and infection by the aquatic orthomyxovirus Infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV). This work has focused on the Type I interferon (IFN) system which is critically important in the vertebrate immune response against viral infections. As a part of this work we have studied the Atlantic salmon IFN ...

Over the last decades, the abundances of many Atlantic salmon populations have declined drastically both due to anthropogenic and natural factors. The period when salmon enter the sea for the first time, starting as smolts in the river and subsequently as post-smolts in the fjord, is regarded as one of most critical periods in the salmon life history. In addition, salmon can also suffer from high ...

In tundra, the diversity within vascular plant communities (alpha diversity) is known to be determined by local drivers such as habitat productivity and ungulate grazing. However, little is known how such local drivers modify the diversity between communities (beta diversity). Furthermore, diversity patterns may be constrained by the size of the regional species pool, which in turn may mediate the ...