Hypericum perforatum L. is an important medicinal plant for the treatment of depression. The plant contains bioactive hypericins that accumulate in dark glands present especially in reproductive parts of the plant. In this study, pathogenesis-related class 10 (PR-10) family genes were identified in H. perforatum, including three previously unidentified members with sequence homology to hyp-1, a ...

<p><i>Background: </i>The use of light level loggers (geolocators) to understand movements and distributions in terrestrial and marine vertebrates, particularly during the non-breeding period, has increased dramatically in recent years. However, inferring positions from light data is not straightforward, often relies on assumptions that are difficult to test, or includes an element of subjectivity ...

We studied the larger (>1000 µm) size fraction of zooplankton in an Arctic coastal water community in Billefjorden, Svalbard (78°40’ N), Norway, in order to describe seasonal vertical distributions of the dominant taxa in relation to environmental variability. Calanus spp. numerically dominated the herbivores; Aglantha digitale, Mertensia ovum, Beroë cucumis, and Parasagitta elegans were the ...

Increasing human activities in the Arctic raise the risk of petroleum pollution, thus posing an elevated risk for Arctic organisms to be chronically exposed to petroleum compounds. The endocrine disrupting properties of some of these compounds (i.e. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs]) present in crude oil may have negative effects on the long and energy intensive reproductive development of ...

Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) are large Holarctic herbivores whose heterogeneous diet has led to the development of a unique gastrointestinal microbiota, essential for the digestion of arctic flora, which may include a large proportion of lichens during winter. Lichens are rich in plant secondary metabolites, which may affect members of the gut microbial consortium, such as the methane-producing ...

Snow is a critically important and rapidly changing feature of the Arctic. However, snow-cover and snowpack conditions change through time pose challenges for measuring and prediction of snow. Plausible scenarios of how Arctic snow cover will respond to changing Arctic climate are important for impact assessments and adaptation strategies. Although much progress has been made in understanding ...

Brucellosis is a zoonosis of worldwide distribution with numerous animal host species. Since the novel isolation of Brucella spp. from marine mammals in 1994 the bacteria have been isolated from various marine mammal hosts. The marine mammal reference strains Brucella pinnipedialis 12890 (harbour seal, Phoca vitulina) and Brucella ceti 12891 (harbour porpoise, Phocoena phocoena) were included in ...

The Slavonian Grebe (Podiceps auritus) has its European northern range limit in northern Norway, and is a species of national conservation concern due to its small population size and unknown population trend. Long-term monitoring at the range limit suggests breeding site use is in decline. We used annual occupancy data from 104 breeding lakes monitored since 1991 in northern Norway to investigate ...