Visually-oriented predators, such as seabirds, are highly light dependent, and thus their presence and activity under continuously dark conditions of Arctic polar night pose a number of questions about the strategies and mechanisms they use to find prey. Here, opportunistic observations of the behaviors of Thick-billed Murres (Uria lomvia; n = 4) and juvenile Black Guillemots (Cepphus grylle; n ...

The Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety (VKM) was requested by the Norwegian Environment Agency in November 2015 to develop a knowledge base for assessment of the environmental risks related to the use of genetically modified (GM) virus vaccine vectors for vaccination of domesticated animals. The Agency requested that the task be conducted in the form of a desk study with the following ...

Dense brittle star assemblages dominate vast areas of the Arctic marine shelves, making them key components of Arctic ecosystem. This study is the first to determine the population dynamics of the dominant shelf brittle star species, <i>Ophiura sarsii</i> and <i>Ophiocten sericeum</i>, through age determination, individual production and total turnover rate (P:B). In the summer of 2013, <i>O. ...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional ...

Highly cellulolytic bacterial species such as <i>Ruminococcus flavefaciens</i> are regarded essential for the microbial breakdown of cellulose in the rumen. We have investigated the effect of ruminal dosing of <i>R. flavefaciens</i> strain 8/94-32 during realimentation of starved reindeer (males, n = 3). Microbiome function measured as in situ digestion of cellulose and food pellets (percent DMD; ...

The European Sector of the Arctic Ocean is characterized by low CO₂ concentrations in seawater during spring and summer, largely due to strong biological uptake driven by extensive plankton blooms in spring. The spring plankton bloom is eventually terminated by nutrient depletion and grazing. However, low CO₂ concentrations in seawater and low atmospheric resupply of CO₂ ...

Bilberry (<i>Vaccinium myrtillus</i> L.) fruits are an excellent natural resource for human diet because of their special flavor, taste and nutritional value as well as medical properties. Bilberries are recognized for their high anthocyanin content and many of the genes involved in the anthocyanin biosynthesis have been characterized. So far, neither genomic nor RNA-seq data have been available for ...

Peatlands store substantial amounts of carbon and are vulnerable to climate change. We present a modified version of the Organising Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems (ORCHIDEE) land surface model for simulating the hydrology, surface energy, and CO₂ fluxes of peatlands on daily to annual timescales. The model includes a separate soil tile in each 0.5° grid cell, defined from a ...

Sustainable development of hydropower demands a holistic view of potential impacts of water level regulation (WLR) on reservoir ecosystems. Most environmental studies of hydropower have focused on rivers, whereas environmental effects of hydropower operations on reservoirs are less well understood. Here, we synthesize knowledge on how WLR from hydropower affects alpine lake ecosystems and highlight ...

The European Commission asked EFSA for a scientific opinion on chronic wasting disease in two parts. Part one, on surveillance, animal health risk‐based measures and public health risks, was published in January 2017. This opinion (part two) addresses the remaining Terms of Reference, namely, ‘are the conclusions and recommendations in the EFSA opinion of June 2004 on diagnostic methods for chronic ...