A major goal of evolutionary science is to understand how biological diversity is generated and altered. Despite considerable advances, we still have limited insight into how phenotypic variation arises and is sorted by natural selection. Here we argue that an integrated view, which merges ecology, evolution and developmental biology (eco evo devo) on an equal footing, is needed to understand the ...

The deep sea is the largest biome on Earth, albeit it is the least studied. Among the complex ecosystems and habitats that form the deep sea, submarine canyons and open slope systems are regarded to be potential hot-spots of biodiversity. The Mediterranean Sea hosts the 8.86% of the inventoried submarine canyons in the global ocean, like the Blanes Canyon, located in its Northwestern section. We ...

Lemmings are a key component of tundra food webs and changes in their dynamics can affect the whole ecosystem. We present a comprehensive overview of lemming monitoring and research activities, and assess recent trends in lemming abundance across the circumpolar Arctic. Since 2000, lemmings have been monitored at 49 sites of which 38 are still active. The sites were not evenly distributed ...

We present the results of an inventory and status assessment of alien species in Norway. The inventory covered all known multicellular neobiota, 2496 in total, 1039 of which were classified as naturalised. The latter constitute c. 3% of all species known to be stably reproducing in Norway. These figures are higher than expected from Norway’s latitude, which may be due a combination of ...

Abstract The Arctic ecosystems and its species are under increased anthropogenic pressure from both climate change and industrial activities. Of special interest is pollution from petrogenic substances, and in particular accidental oil spills, that pose a risk to arctic marine organisms. An oil spill in the Arctic may see crude oil encapsulated into the sea ice and over time leaching to surface ...

Apicomplexa parasites, including Toxoplasma gondii and Plasmodium falciparum, contain a secondary endosymbiosis-derived plastid like organ, called apicoplast, which is an anabolic hub. This apicoplast is fueled by phosphate translocator (APT), which transport phosphorylated sugar molecules in exchange of inorganic phosphate. Disruption of APT in T. gondii was found to be lethal for parasite. Beside ...

The diet of 99 coastal-feeding ringed seals (Pusa hispida), collected in western Spitsbergen, Svalbard (Norway), was analysed via identification of hard-parts in the contents of their gastrointestinal tracts (GITs). The study animals where shot either in spring (n = 30; April-July) or autumn (n = 69; August-October) during four consecutive years (2014-2017). Thirty different prey types were identified ...

Fjords are the interface between land and ocean, and processes happening on land have implication for the coastal areas. In addition, differences in fjord characteristics, such as morphology, sedimentation and water circulation, can drive differences in fjord ecology, including benthic community composition (Syvitsky et al. 1986). Soft-bottom macro-fauna was collected in August 2018 using a Van-Veen ...

Parasitic plants including Cuscuta develop specialized structures called haustoria during infection. These specialized organs give the parasite the capacity of host attachment, invasion, vasculature connection and material transfer between the host and the parasite. Successful invasion allows organic substances, nutrients and water to flow into the parasite through the host phloem and xylem cells. ...

The Arctic is a sink for pollutants that accumulate there via long-range transport and biomagnification of persistent organic pollutant (POPs). The main objectives of this study were to identify the pollutants in the Svalbard Atlantic puffin and to compare their levels with southern puffin colonies and Svalbard seabird species to assess risk to the puffin. Svalbard Samples were analysed for contaminants ...