Animals in seasonal environments must prudently manage energy expenditure to survive the winter. This may be achieved through reductions in the allocation of energy for various purposes (e.g. thermoregulation, locomotion, etc.). We studied whether such trade-offs also include suppression of the innate immune response, by subjecting captive male Svalbard ptarmigan (<i>Lagopus muta hyperborea</i>) to ...

The annual photoperiod cycle provides the critical environmental cue synchronizing rhythms of life in seasonal habitats. In 1936, Bünning proposed a circadian-based coincidence timer for photoperiodic synchronization in plants. Formal studies support the universality of this so-called coincidence timer, but we lack understanding of the mechanisms involved. Here we show in mammals that long photoperiods ...

Fish skin is a multifunctional barrier tissue with high regeneration capacity that interacts with the surrounding environment and provides protection. Functional importance, high complexity and activity make skin an attractive tissue for studying the effects of environmental challenges and chemical stressors in fish. The aim of this work was to characterize skin from polar cod (<i>Boreogadus saida</i>) ...

Current projections suggest that climate warming will be accompanied by more frequent and severe drought events. Peatlands store ca. one third of the world’s soil organic carbon. Warming and drought may cause peatlands to become carbon sources through stimulation of microbial activity increasing ecosystem respiration, with positive feedback effect on global warming. Micro-eukaryotes play a key role ...

The ice cod <i>Arctogadus glacialis</i> (Peters, 1872) is one of the few fish species endemic to the Arctic. With a circumpolar distribution, the species is confined to the fjords and shelves of the Arctic seas. Biological information on <i>A. glacialis</i> is scarce, with genomic information restricted to microsatellites. Within the frame of the TUNU-Programme: Arctic Ocean Fishes—Diversity, ...

Full mitochondrial genomes were assembled for 12 recently sampled animals from the Svalbard bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) stock via high-throughput sequencing data, facilitating analysis of the demographic history of the population for the first time. The Svalbard population has retained noticeable amounts of mitochondrial genome diversity despite extreme historical harvest levels. Haplotype ...

Parasitic plants of the genus Cuscuta penetrate shoots of host plants with haustoria and build a connection to the host vasculature to exhaust water, solutes and carbohydrates. Such infections usually stay unrecognized by the host and lead to harmful host plant damage. Here, we show a molecular mechanism of how plants can sense parasitic Cuscuta. We isolated an 11 kDa protein of the parasite cell ...

The parasitic plant genus <i>Cuscuta</i> is notoriously difficult to transform and to propagate or regenerate in vitro. With it being a substantial threat to many agroecosystems, techniques allowing functional analysis of gene products involved in host interaction and infection mechanisms are, however, in high demand. We set out to explore whether <i>Agrobacterium</i>‐mediated transformation of ...

Organisms use changes in photoperiod to anticipate and exploit favourable conditions in a seasonal environment. While species living at temperate latitudes receive day length information as a year-round input, species living in the Arctic may spend as much as two-thirds of the year without experiencing dawn or dusk. This suggests that specialised mechanisms may be required to maintain seasonal ...

Successional processes can be observed for many organisms and resources, but most studies of succession have focused on plants. A general framework has been proposed, advocating that successional patterns in species turnover are predominantly driven by competition, dispersal or abiotic limitation, and that the patterning of species accumulation over time gives clues to which process is most influential ...