The evolutionary scaling of brain size on body size among species is strikingly constant across vertebrates, suggesting that the brain size is constrained by body size. Body size is a strong predictor of brain size, but ...

I have addressed taxonomic affiliation, genus delimitation, and species delimitations in the lichen genus Eschatogonia. Preliminary parsimony analyses, based on one mitochondrial (SSU) ribosomal DNA-region, on a dataset ...

In sexually reproducing taxa, normal sperm function is critical for successful reproduction, and pathogenic bacteria can prevent this. Thus, understanding the role of bacteria in ejaculates can have significant implications ...

Insect pollination is an important contribution to wild ecosystems in Norway and 80 % of plants seem to benefit from this important ecosystem service. During the last century, there has been an overall decline in pollinators, ...

In the past century, the agricultural landscape in Norway, and Europe, has changed drastically. Artificial fertilizer, electricity and modern machinery has contributed to the development of the industrialization of the ...

Abstract Rotifers and phytoplankton have been vastly used by scientists as model organisms in toxicological, eco-toxicological, ecological and other studies. In order to conduct experiments on interactions between animals ...

Bird song is used for both intra-sexual and inter-sexual interactions, in male-male competition and for attracting females. In species that use song for attraction, the females often prefer males with larger repertoires ...

Fragmentation of habitats is one of the major threats to biodiversity. Fragmentations will reduce connectivity and consequently affect the genetic population structure particularly in rivers. In the current study the genetic ...

Climate change is the effect of rapid and recent change in global climate variables, affecting all species in all ecosystems. Fungi are no exception, fulfilling a variety of important roles as decomposers, parasites and ...

Primates habitats are being increasingly fragmented by human activities worldwide. The behavioural flexibility exhibited by vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) is assumed to be crucial in the species ability to persist ...

The regular movement of animals between summer and winter ranges, termed seasonal migration, is a common phenomenon among ungulates at northern latitudes. The most prominent hypothesis to explain seasonal migration is the ...

Ticks are important vectors for a variety of pathogens of medical and veterinary importance worldwide. Small rodents and shrews are widely distributed, and can harbour several species of ticks and substantial tick burdens. ...

Section Cochlearia (Brassicaceae) includes highly polymorphic species complexes with regard to ploidal level, ecological adaptation and distribution. Low levels of chloroplast DNA divergence suggest that taxa most likely ...

Hybridization is an important evolutionary force. It may lead to the formation of new, adaptive genotypes, or even the formation of a new species. However, it also may lead to replacement, or merging of species. Hybridization ...

Nutrient availability is important for microbes in soil environments. When an animal dies and decomposes, nutrients are released into the soil. This may cause a shift in the diversity of microbes present, as well as lead ...

Hybridization is increasingly recognized as a source of novel variation, but how hybridization can contribute to evolution is still not fully understood. Insights into the evolutionary potential of hybrid species, and the ...

Fisheries activities and the development of more efficient fishing gear, have had detrimental effects in commercial stocks. This occurs largely as a result of negative selection acting on certain individuals during the ...

A permanent landscape scale grazing experiment was established at Hol, Buskerud, in a lower alpine ecosystem with a recent history of rather low grazing pressure. Since 2002, nine sub-enclosures has been permanently subjected ...

Various stressors such as higher temperatures, grazing by sea urchins, and anthropogenic effects may threaten kelp forests around the world. Conservation efforts can benefit from an understanding of current and historic ...

Mycorrhizal associations are essential to most plant life on earth. Cassiope tetragona is a circumpolar Arctic plant in the Ericaceae family, which has been reported to form ericoid mycorrhiza as well as ectomycorrhiza, ...

Sandtjern nature reserve, located on the Gardermoen Delta, SE Norway, consists of a series of kettle holes that are subjected to severe annual wet-dry cycles due to flooding. In the rainy season in late autumn, the kettle ...

Hybridization is a common phenomenon within the genus Canis. The recently discovered African wolf (Canis lupaster), is sympatric with several closely related species; the Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis), the side-striped ...

Arabidopsis thaliana has proven to be an extremely useful model organism in studies of plant biology and an extensive base of knowledge has been amassed of the diverse molecular processes in this plant. The next step is ...

Animal personality can be defined as individual behavioural differences that are repeatable and consistent across time and/or contexts. In the model species great tit Parus major, studies on personality have shown consistent ...

Repeatable behavioural variation within individuals that is consistent over time and across contexts is often defined as non-human animal personality. Individuals may be classified as having a shy or bold personality. Shy ...

Across the avian lineage, closely related species, or even populations within the same species may display differing migratory phenotypes. The many components of migratory behaviour are inherited as one migratory gene ...

Wrasse species went from having almost no commercial value in Norway, and not being fished, to a landing of 21.2 million individuals in 2014 with 11.68 million of these being goldsinny. This explosive growth in fishing ...

Juncus bulbosus Growth Experiment performed over 13 weeks to establish its response to anoxic conditions over root system. 20 of 40 plants were grown hydroponically with oxygen deprived water supplied to the root system. ...

When facing life-threatening perturbation the following stress reaction will usually turn current behavior towards survival behaviors. However, this can have a potential fitness trade-off if it turns behavior away from ...

The Black Death pandemic swept through Europe during the Middle Ages leading to high mortality from plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. How the disease was transmitted in Europe is not fully elucidated, and ...

Beak morphology is an ecologically important trait for birds. Beak size and shape are crucial for adapting to new niches and for optimal utilization of existing food sources. The adaptive potential of a species can be ...

The population dynamics of the three early colonizing vascular plant species Oxyria digyna, Poa alpina and Ranunculus glacialis was studied in a chronosequence in the glacier foreland of Hellstugubreen in Jotunheimen ...

Reproductive barriers between diverging taxa are necessary for speciation to occur. Premating barriers are thought to be of especially great importance, such as plumage colour which is often used in species recognition and ...

Temperatur og fosforkonsentrasjon spiller inn på cellesyklus til C. reinhardtii. Ikke-synkron cellesyklus gjør størrelsesendringer vanskelig å detekterer. Mulig genomstørrelse endring som følge av reallokasjon av P fra DNA ...

Polyploidy and ecotypic differentiation are important aspects of plant evolution. The present study has applied molecular methods to investigate the polyploid origin and ecotypic differentiation of the tetraploid Cochlearia ...

European grayling from a common-gene pool and with a known ancestry were released into headwaters of a river system in Lesja, Oppland, Norway, about a century ago. These grayling dispersed downstream, and as a result there ...

Interspecific hybridization has intrigued evolutionary biologists since Darwin s time. New genetic combinations can arise from hybridization, leading to offspring sometimes able to adapt to different niches than their ...

Extractive foraging of underground storage organs (USOs) is believed to have played an important role in human evolution. This behavior is also present in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), who sometimes use tools in the ...

The taxonomy of the staphylinid genus Mocyta was explored using molecular markers, in addition to a thorough investigation of the published literature regarding this genus and its proposed morphospecies. The aim was to ...

As molecular and bioinformatics techniques are used more frequently and new marine habitats are analysed, a constant increase of marine fungal diversity has been reported, suggesting that marine fungi are a diverse but ...

The three-spine stickleback is an adaptable fish with variation in morphology and behaviour, inhabiting saltwater, brackish water and fresh water. It is armoured with 30-35 bone plates along its lateral line. In addition, ...

Ectomycorrhiza (ECM) is an ancient and prevalent symbiosis between plants and fungi, and is crucial for growth and survival for a number of plants. Host plants can form ECM with multiple fungi, yet little is known about ...

Elettaria Maton is a small genus in the pantropical Zingiberaceae, comprising 11 species. Molecular data analyses have been widely used to reconstruct evolutionary history and to infer phylogenetic relationships, but to ...

The population dynamics of the three early colonizing plant species Saxifraga stellaris, Arabis alpina and Cerastium cerastoides was studied in the Hellstugubreen glacier foreland in Jotunheimen National Park in southern ...

Phenotypic plasticity allows organisms with identical genotypes to develop different phenotypes in response to different environmental cues. Phenotypic plasticity is a trait in itself, and can be either adaptive or ...

Plant reproduction in the Arctic is challenging, and tight energy budgets, short growing season and the limited number of pollinators favour self-pollination. Self-pollination over time will, however, have a negative effect ...

Heterozygosity is often shown to have a positive relationship with fitness-related characters. Sperm cells are fitness-related characters that show great variation among species, population's males and even within individual ...

A set of life history traits were studied in order to compare the thermal responses of two populations of the surface living Collembolan Hypogastrura viatica, from the highly contrasting climates of north east Svalbard and ...

The common chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) is a widespread passerine species in the West Palearctic, and is a common breeder in most of Europe, western Asia, northern Africa, and the Macaronesian islands in the Atlantic ...

Ichthyosaurs were a group of marine reptiles that thrived in the Mesozoic seas. They evolved to be highly specialized marine predators, and were the first reptilian group to be entirely aquatic. This project’s goal was to ...

Host specificity among ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi seems to vary among different habitats, and it is difficult to draw general conclusions across environments. Little is known about the host specificity among arctic ECM ...

This thesis presents a synthesis of experimental studies with Daphnia, in a multigenerational perspective. The main goal of the thesis was to investigate the role of diet (phosphorous (P) limitation) and temperature (10 ...

The main objective of the present study is to describe and compare the morphology of the female genitalia within a selected number of species and families of the lower Diptera. The results are presented as two papers with ...

The epiphytic bryophyte composition between and within 73 ash trees (minimum stem diameter at breast height 20 cm) at Tungesvik, Etne, West Norway was investigated. The main aim of the study was to investigate patterns of ...

Speciation involves the evolution of reproductive barriers that maintain the genetic integrity of species. Premating barriers, in particular, have been referred to as one of the most important mechanisms in keeping species ...

Sorghum is ranked the fifth most produced food crop in the world, and is a dietary staple for over 500 million people in over 30 countries. It is the second most produced food crop in Africa, where cultivation of local ...

The dry rot fungus Serpula lacrymans is known as one of the most aggressive fungal house invaders in temperate regions. Recent genetic and phylogeographic studies have shed light on the distribution, colonisation and ...

The ridge-snowbed gradient is of high importance in alpine areas in structuring the vegetation cover. However, to what degree belowground fungal communities are affected by the gradient is much poorer understood. In this ...