Boards of directors represent an important, but understudied, resource for business development of High North SMEs. We studied board director perceptions of what constitutes the most important board tasks and which activities each major task actually involved. We followed a local board development project with participants from several industries and companies in Northern Norway over a two-year ...

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 ...

<i>Background</i>: Implementation of digital monitoring technology systems is considered beneficial for increasing the safety and quality of care for residents in nursing homes and simultaneously improving care providers’ workflow. Co-creation is a suitable approach for developing and implementing digital technologies and transforming the service accordingly. This study aimed to identify the ...

Rapidly rising temperatures are having great effects on the high arctic ecosystem, historically characterized by long, cold winter periods, and cold dry summers. Due to the length of the winter season, arctic soils have been an important carbon sink, but may now be facing increased microbial activity due to increasing temperatures. Temperature, moisture, and litter quality play important roles in ...

This study represents one of the first studies that has explored the spatial and temporal differences in diving behaviour of weaned harp seal pups (Pagophilus groenlandicus) from the Greenland Sea stock. The study is also the first to map the weaned harp seal pups from the Greenland Sea population. In April 2017, newly weaned harp seal pups (n=26) from the Greenland Sea stock were tagged with satellite ...

The Common guillemot (Uria aalge) is a monomorphic seabird who exhibits two colour morphs: a bridled and an unbridled. The aim of this study was to investigate which effect parental sex and morph had on the daily chick feeding frequency and during the chick-rearing period. To assess this, two fixed time-lapse cameras were used to document the chick feeding frequency for 27 Common guillemot families ...

Diving species can cope with acute and repeated hypoxia through adaptations that are absent in non-diving animals. One of the greatest challenges to deal with during diving is the lowering of the arterial oxygen pressure (PaO2), which causes a decrease in the driving force for the oxygen diffusion from the capillaries to the cells. My hypothesis is that the marine mammalian brain shows improved brain ...

Methylmercury (MeHg) is of concern because it has the capacity to readily bioaccumulate and biomagnify along trophic levels until humans, exhibiting toxic effects such as neurotoxicity. Increased permafrost melt (that stores large amounts of carbon and mercury (Hg)) and river inputs, are expected to increase the exposure to Hg through uptake and transfer of contaminants through the food web. The ...

Peatlands constitute the largest natural reservoir of carbon on the planet making them key components in the global carbon balance. Peatlands are mostly found in the northern hemisphere under cold conditions. As the world is warming and arctic peatlands are becoming heavily influenced by increasing temperatures, an increased interest in the peat soil microbial systems have arisen. Methane, a potent ...

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 ...