Monitoring the distribution of marine non-indigenous species is a challenging task. To support this monitoring, we developed and validated the specificity of 12 primer-probe assays for detection of environmental DNA (eDNA) from marine species all non-indigenous to Europe. The species include sturgeons, a Pacific red algae, oyster thief, a freshwater hydroid from the Black Sea, Chinese mitten crab, ...

Environmental DNA analysis is rapidly transforming biodiversity monitoring and bolstering conservation applications worldwide. This approach has been assisted by the development of metabarcoding PCR primers that are suited for detection of a wide range of taxa. However, little effort has gone into exploring the value of the non-target DNA sequences that are generated in every survey, but subsequently ...

Human-wildlife problems often arise when predators kill livestock. This can develop into serious conflicts between traditional pastoralists and other stakeholders, such as government officials and conservationists. In the Yamal Peninsula (Russia), nearly half of the indigenous Nenets people are reindeer herders. They have recently faced many challenges, such as high mortality of reindeer from pasture ...

Studies of the effects of variation in resource availability are important for understanding the ecology of high-latitude mammals. This paper examines the potential of dental evidence (tooth wear and breakage) as a proxy for diet and food choice in Vulpes lagopus, the Arctic fox. It presents a preliminary study of dental microwear, gross wear score, and tooth breakage in a sample (n = 78 individuals) ...

Hormones and mRNA transcripts of maternal origin deposited in the egg may affect early embryonic development in oviparous species. These hormones include steroids, such as estradiol-17β (E2), testosterone (T), 11-ketotestosterone (11-kt), 17α,20ß-dihydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one (DHP), and cortisol, which also play an important role in fish reproduction. In European eel, <i>Anguilla anguilla</i>, which ...

Global warming is affecting the population dynamics and trophic interactions across a wide range of ecosystems and habitats. Translating these real-time effects into their long-term consequences remains a challenge. The rapid and extreme warming period that occurred after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition (7–12 thousand years ago) provides an opportunity ...

Global warming has pronounced effects on tundra vegetation, and rising mean temperatures increase plant growth potential across the Arctic biome. Herbivores may counteract the warming impacts by reducing plant growth, but the strength of this effect may depend on prevailing regional climatic conditions. To study how ungulates interact with temperature to influence growth of tundra shrubs across ...

This thesis presents a study of the impact of climate warming on deep demersal fish communities East of Greenland, in a transition zone between Atlantic and Arctic waters. Climate change was expected to affect fish community composition and functional characterization via poleward distributional shifts and changes in abundance. To assess the climate driven effects on fish communities, I used long ...

The Kerguelen Plateau is a region of natural iron fertilization in the Southern Ocean, within the typically iron limited High Nutrient Low Chlorophyll (HNLC) waters of the eastward flowing Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Between 26 February and 19 March 2018, the MOBYDICK expedition investigated pelagic ecosystem dynamics in the Kerguelen Island region on the northern plateau during the post-phytoplankton ...

The purpose of this study is to explore the direct and interaction effects of entrepreneurial events (feasibility and desirability) and perceived risk (opportunity and threat) on entrepreneurial intention in a transitional economy – Vietnam. The testing results show that perceived desirability and perceived feasibility have direct and interactive effects on entrepreneur intention. Risk as both threat ...