Climate change causes disturbances to soil environments. Such disturbances include shifts in vegetation composition and rising temperatures, which can impact the microbial communities involved in soil carbon cycling. In this thesis, my emphasis was centered on two main aspects: the effects of vegetation changes, caused by herbivory, and the effects of temperature changes on the soil organic matter ...

The long-term dynamics of predator populations may be driven by fluctuations in resource availability and reflect ecosystem changes such as those induced by climate change. The Icelandic Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) population has known major fluctuations in size since the 1950s. Using stable isotopes analysis of bone collagen over a long-time series (1979– 2018), we aimed at identifying the main ...

While sea cucumber is a food delicacy in Asia, these food resources are less exploited in Europe. The aim of this study was to determine the chemical composition and potential food applications of the less exploited orange-footed sea cucumber (Cucumaria frondosa). In particular, the antioxidative capacity and free amino acids associated with the umami flavor released by enzymatic hydrolyses by ...

Human-made structures are ubiquitous in the marine realm. Complex structures such as oil and gas platforms may constitute a suitable habitat for species in areas where natural reefs have been highly degraded by coastal development. We here explore the suitability of fish assemblages associated to offshore platforms as surrogates for depleted fish stocks from coastal areas. Taxonomic and functional ...

Background: High concentrations of taurine are present in the developing human brain and maternal breast milk. Taurine is thought to influence fetal growth and brain development based on experimental rodent studies. As fish is an important dietary source of taurine, we investigated associations between taurine concentrations and child outcomes in a high fish consuming population.<p> <p>Objective: ...

The Arctic region is undergoing rapid and significant changes, characterized by high rates of acidification and warming. These transformations prompt critical questions about the resilience of marine communities in the face of environmental change. In the Arctic, marine zooplankton and in particular calanoid copepods play a vital role in the food web. Changes in environmental conditions could ...

An increasing number of organisms from the polar regions are reported contaminated by plastic. Rarely a nonkilling sampling method is used. In this study we wanted to assess plastic levels using stomach flushing and evaluate the method suitability for further research and monitoring. The stomach of 22 fulmars from Bjørnøya, Svalbard, were flushed with water in the field. On return to the laboratory, ...

Climate warming generally induces poleward range expansions and equatorward range contractions of species’ environmental niches on a global scale. Here, we examined the direction and magnitude of species biomass centroid geographic shifts in relation to temperature and depth for 83 fish species in 9,522 standardised research trawls from the North Sea (1998–2020) to the Norwegian (2000–2020) and ...

Pollution is one of the main anthropogenic threats to marine ecosystems. Studies analysing the accumulation and transfer of contaminants in planktonic food webs tend to rely on samples collected in discrete water bodies. Here, we assessed the representativeness of measurements at the chlorophyll-a maximum layer during the MERITEHIPPOCAMPE cruise for the entire water column by investigating the ...

As a result of regulatory decisions, atmospheric deposition of most toxic metals and metalloids (MEs) has decreased in Europe over the past few decades. However, little is known about how this reduction translates into exposure at higher trophic levels in the terrestrial environment where temporal trends may be spatially heterogeneous due to local current or legacy sources of emissions (e.g., industry) ...