In the light of the recent findings of the tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis (EM) in four red foxes from three different locations in Sweden, the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety (Vitenskapskomiteen; VKM), Panel of Biological Hazards (Faggruppe hygiene og smittestoffer) took the initiative to undertake a risk assessment regarding the probability of this parasite being introduced to ...

Monilinia blight disease caused by <i>Monilinia vaccinii-corymbosi</i> (Reade) Honey (<i>M.vc</i>) causes severe damage and economic losses in wild blueberry growing regions. Molecular mechanisms regulating defence responses of wild blueberry phenotypes towards this causal fungus are not yet fully known. A reliable quantification of gene expression using quantitative real time PCR (qPCR) is fundamental ...

The Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety (VKM) has appointed an ad hoc-group of experts to answer a request from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority regarding benefit and risk assessment of Lactobacillus paracasei ssp. paracasei F19 (F19) in processed cereal-based baby foods intended for small children 1-3 years. This assessment is based on the literature provided by the notifier as well ...

Direct consumption on free-living cercariae stages of trematodes by non-host organisms interferes with trematode transmission and leads to reduced infections in the next suitable hosts. Consumer functional responses provide a useful tool to examine relationships between consumption rates and ecologically relevant prey densities, whilst also accounting for abiotic factors that likely influence ...

Visually foraging planktivorous fish are prey of visual predators, and their foraging behaviour may be affected by light levels both in terms of gain and risk. The large seasonal change in day length throughout a subarctic summer at 69°N was used to show the influence of light on diel vertical migration (DVM) and shoaling patterns in a planktivorous fish assemblage consisting of two species (<i>Coregonus ...

The food/feed quality of a variety of genetically modified (GM) maize expressing Cry1Ab Bt-toxin was tested over the life-cycle of <i>Daphnia magna</i>, an arthropod commonly used as model organism in ecotoxicological studies. Demographic responses were compared between animals fed GM or unmodified (UM) near isogenic maize, with and without the addition of predator smell. Age-specific data on survival ...

The attenuation coefficient <i>b</i> is one of the most common ways to describe how strong the carbon flux is attenuated throughout the water column. Therefore, <i>b</i> is an essential input variable in many carbon flux and climate models. Marsay et al. (2015, <a href=https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1415311112>https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1415311112</a>) proposed that the median surface water temperature ...

A unicellular, heterotrophic, eukaryotic parasite was isolated from nearshore Arctic marine sediment in association with the diatom <i>Pleurosigma</i> sp. The parasite possessed ectoplasmic threads that could penetrate diatom frustules. Healthy and reproducing <i>Pleurosigma</i> cultures would begin to collapse within a week following the introduction of this parasite. The parasite (2–10 μm diameter) ...

1. The leaf is an essential unit for measures of plant ecological traits. Yet, measures of plant chemical traits are often achieved by merging several leaves, masking potential foliar variation within and among plant individuals. This is also the case with cost‐effective measures derived using near‐infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS). The calibration models developed for converting NIRS spectral ...

<i>Introduction</i> - Monogeneans of the genus <i>Gyrodactylus</i> were found on the gills of specimens of the bigeye sculpin <i>Triglops nybelini</i> Jensen, 1944 caught by trawl in the Barents Sea in January–February 2016.<p> <p><i>Methods</i> - Morphological preparations of the parasites were examined and photographed under a microscope at magnifcations of×100–1000 and morphometric analyses ...