Ptarmigan are one of the few animals, and only bird species, to undergo seasonal colour change. Every year they moult between a white winter morph and brown summer and autumn morphs and back again. Skin samples were collected from Lagopus muta and Lagopus lagopus during the autumn moult between brown and white morphs to compare areas with brown feathers and areas that had grown white feathers. The ...

Cod aquaculture is a rapidly expanding industry in Norway and with an increase of biomass in mariculture the concern for diseases spread to and from farmed populations of cod is increasing. The genus Gyrodactylus Nordmann, 1832 are parasitic monogeneans infecting teleost fish in marine and fresh water habitats worldwide. To investigate a possible problematic species of this genus the gill filaments ...

Norwegian fishers report an increase in negative interactions with marine mammals: An issue that is also on the rise, globally. Efforts to mitigate these interactions using currently available methods have yielded little success for larger cetaceans. This study examines the efficacy of a novel target-specific acoustic startle technology (TAST) in deterring killer whales (Orcinus orca) and humpback ...

The Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) is a commercially important species that exhibits an anadromous life cycle involving migratory movements between freshwater and marine environments. Understanding the fundamental biology of the Atlantic salmon, particularly during key life history transitions such as smoltification, is therefore of great importance. In light of modern biotechnology and the completed ...

Gelatinous zooplankton, here referring to the phylum Cnidaria and Ctenophora and the class Appendicularia are important components of marine ecosystems due to their very diverse diets, life cycles and seasonal dynamics. In the Barents Sea, several studies reviewed the gelatinous zooplankton diversity, yet few studies documented the diversity and distribution patterns between the advected ...

Ecological systems, such as marine ecosystems, are complex adaptive systems in which large scale system properties (e.g., trophic structure, energy flux patterns, etc.) emerge from interactions between ecosystem components or species. This makes them difficult to understand, predict, and model. The Norwegian and Barents Seas support multiple commercial fisheries, including those for herring, cod, ...

Teams of Alaskan huskies and Siberian Huskies are used to pull sleds and compete in long-distance races such as Finnmarksløpet (1200 km) and the Iditarod (1600 km). That is an elite athlete performance, and their ability to conduct such extreme endurance challenges under arctic conditions is poorly understood. A previous study has shown that Alaskan huskies possibly have the highest values of ...

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and global temperatures have increased steadily over the past 100 years (IPCC, 2018). Greenhouse gases, such as CO2, and their emissions from soils play an important role in shaping future climate scenarios. Soil microorganisms are responsible for the turnover of soil organic matter and the release of CO2 to the atmosphere (Hartley et al., 2008), thereby ...

Most marine ecological research in the Arctic has focused on open water ecosystems, while coastal ecosystems are systematically under-studied. However, Arctic near-shore ecosystems are highly stressed environments and play a major role in biogeochemical cycling (e.g., nutrient input from thawing permafrost). Furthermore, the Arctic region has extreme environmental conditions which are expected ...

The Barents Sea is a shelf sea in the European Arctic and is influenced by the North Atlantic Current and the Arctic Ocean. The North Atlantic Current is composed of warmer, saline waters compared to the cold, fresher waters from the Arctic Ocean. Over the last century, the Barents Sea mean temperature has increased by 1.5°C above a depth of 60m and by 0.5-0.8°C below 60m. This warming is ...