The System for Assessment of Ecological Condition, coordinated by the Norwegian Environment Agency, is intended to form the foundation for evidence-based assessments of the ecological condition of Norwegian terrestrial and marine ecosystems not covered by the EU Water Framework Directive. The reference condition is defined as “intact ecosystems”, i.e., a condition that is largely unimpacted by modern ...

We compared metazoan parasite communities of an introduced three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) population with the nearby source population in northern Norway to study differences and clarify if factors controlling parasite dispersal act on a small spatialscale. The two component communities were highly similar. All parasite taxa found in the source population also occurred in the ...

The fish species vendace (<i>Coregonus albula</i>) invaded the sub‐arctic Pasvik watercourse during the second half of the 1980s, and became the dominant pelagic species in the upstream part of the watercourse within a few years. Life history traits of the pioneer population of vendace in Pasvik were recorded from 1991–2000. A rapid increase in population density in the upstream part of the watercourse ...

The Barents Sea is a nursery area for many commercially and ecologically important fish stocks, and this whole region is presently subject to rapid climatic change from a cold period in the 1980s to a record warm period in the latest decade, with a peak in 2016. The present study focuses exclusively on year 2016, which was characterized by record warm air and seawater and an exceptionally large ...

The Barents Sea has experienced substantial warming over the last few decades with expansion of relatively warm Atlantic water and reduction in sea ice. Based on a review of relevant literature and additional analyses, we report changes in the pelagic compartment associated with this warming using data from autumn surveys (acoustic capelin, 0-group fish, and ecosystem surveys). We estimated ...

Numerical models of ecological systems are increasingly used to address complex environmental and resource management questions. One challenge for scientists, managers, and stakeholders is to appraise how well suited these models are to answer questions of scientific or societal relevance, that is, to perform, communicate, or access transparent evaluations of ecological models. While there have been ...

The Barents Sea is one of the Polar regions where current climate and ecosystem change is most pronounced. Here we review the current state of knowledge of the physical, chemical and biological systems in the Barents Sea. Physical conditions in this area are characterized by large seasonal contrasts between partial sea-ice cover in winter and spring versus predominantly open water in summer and ...

In adaptive radiations, ecological opportunity (i.e. niche availability) is considered to be an important driver to increase phenotypic variation, but diversity may also be constrained by historical factors related to colonization events. How do ecological opportunity and post-glacial colonization history affect the phenotypic diversity in a young species lineage? We quantified phenotypic diversity ...

As an Arctic gateway, the Norwegian Sea sustains a rich diversity of seasonal and resident species of soniferous animals, vulnerable to the efects of climate change and anthropogenic activities. We show the occurrence of seasonal patterns of acoustic signals in a small canyon of Northern Norway, and investigate cetacean vocal behavior, human-made noise, and climatic contributions to underwater ...