Nature-based tourism is increasingly encouraged to support local socioeconomic development in and around protected areas, but managing protected areas for tourism could challenge existing park uses associated with self-organized outdoor recreation and local resource use. We used a web-based Public Participatory Geographic Information System (PPGIS) to identify the most important places and values ...

The ecosystem role of Arctic microbial communities is still largely unknown. Based on a time-series study at the IsA station (West Spitsbergen), the seasonality and contribution of pelagic protists to the vertical flux was investigated at 7 time points during 2011-2012. The hydrography of this high-Arctic fjord was evaluated to identify impacts on the community composition during the different ...

Land cover maps are the basic data layer required for understanding and modeling ecological patterns and processes. The Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM), produced in 2003, has been widely used as a base map for studies in the arctic tundra biome. However, the relatively coarse resolution and vector format of the map were not compatible with many other data sets. We present a new version of ...

A conspicuous season–diversity relationship (SDR) can be seen in seasonal environments, often with a defined peak in active species diversity in the growing season. We ask is this a general pattern and are other patterns possible? In addition, we ask what is the ultimate cause of this pattern and can we understand it using existing ecological theory? To accomplish this task, we assembled a global ...

Increasing atmospheric methane concentrations contribute significantly to global warming. The only known biological sink for atmospheric methane is oxidation by methane oxidizing bacteria (MOB). Due to the lack of pure cultures, the physiology and metabolic potential of MOB that oxidize atmospheric methane remains a mystery. Here, we report on isolation and characterization of a MOB that can grow ...

The year‐round thermal habitat at sea for adult Atlantic salmon <i>Salmo salar</i> (<i>n</i> = 49) from northern Norway was investigated using archival tags over a 10 year study period. During their ocean feeding migration, the fish spent 90% of the time in waters with temperatures from 1.6–8.4°C. Daily mean temperatures ranged from −0.5 to 12.9°C, with daily temperature variation up to 9.6°C. Fish ...

<i>Question</i> - How does increased snow depth affect plant community composition of High Arctic tundra, and can the Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) detect induced changes?<p><p> <i>Location</i> - Adventdalen, Spitsbergen, Svalbard (78°10′ N, 16°04′ E).<p><p> <i>Methods</i> - We manipulated snow depth on the tundra using fences, resulting in <i>Deep, Medium</i>, and ...

The uptake of inorganic nutrients by rootless parasitic plants, which depend on host connections for all nutrient supplies, is largely uncharted. Using X‐ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), we analyzed the element composition of macro‐ and micronutrients at infection sites of the parasitic angiosperm <i>Cuscuta reflexa</i> growing on hosts of the genus <i>Pelargonium</i>. Imaging methods combining ...

Ecosystems are increasingly prone to climate extremes, such as drought, with long‐lasting effects on both plant and soil communities and, subsequently, on carbon (C) cycling. However, recent studies underlined the strong variability in ecosystem's response to droughts, raising the issue of nonlinear responses in plant and soil communities. The conundrum is what causes ecosystems to shift in response ...

In mammals, melatonin is responsible for the synchronisation of seasonal cycles to the solar year. Melatonin is secreted by the pineal gland with a profile reflecting the duration of the night and acts via the pituitary pars tuberalis (PT), which in turn modulates hypothalamic thyroid hormone status via seasonal changes in the production of locally‐acting thyrotrophin. Recently, we demonstrated that, ...