Blogs of the CEG research group – In CEG, we are interested in all aspects of biodiversity, evolutionary and comparative research using genome-scale approaches, with an emphasis on invertebrate animals

På norsk

Fra og med 2024 kan du også lese blogginnleggene våre her på norsk.

Group of the month

Every month we will present a cool animal group in a blog with lots of fun facts. If you are interested in learning more look at “Group of the month”.

Miscellaneous

Besides our different larger project we also have smaller projects or papers going on, which we will discuss in this category.

InvertOmics

Here, we will keep you informed about our projects relying on strongly on genomics.

Museomics

In our group, we are doing different research projects on how the samples in our collections can be used for molecular work. Take a look into our blog “Museomics” to get a glimpse of our activities there.

Cryptic species

In our group, we are doing different research projects concerning cryptic species using different approaches and addressing different research questions. Take a look into our blog “Cryptic species” to get a glimpse of our activities there.

ArtsDatabanken

The goal of the Norwegian ArtsDatanken is to describe the occurrence of species all over Norway. We are also contributing to this with different projects and lots of field work. Many posts and pictures about field work are to come here. Take a look at our blog once in awhile.

Advent calendar

If you want to get an overview of our activities in the different years since 2020, please take a look at the blogs in the tab “Advents calendar”.

Månedens gruppe – Saccocirridae, de store små

Saccocirridae regnes som en meiofaunal eller interstitiell annelidfamilie, ettersom alle artene finnes i rommet mellom sandkornene. Mens noen få arter kan være ganske små med 3 mm, er flere ganske store med opptil 3 cm i lengde. I tillegg kan de være ganske brede med en kroppsbredde på […]

Group of the month – Saccocirridae, the large small ones

Saccocirridae is considered a meiofaunal or interstitial annelid family as all species are found in the space between the sand grains. While a few species might be quite small with 3 mm, several are quite large with up to 3 cm in length. Additionally, they can be quite […]

Månedens gruppe: Protodriloidae – bare to arter, men viktige

Protodriloidae er en familie med bare to arter i slekten Protodriloides. Sammen med familiene Saccocirridae og Protodrilidae er de en del av ordenen Protodrilida. Vi vil lære mer om de to andre familiene i løpet av de neste to månedene. Så gled dere til det. Begge Protodriloides-artene ser […]

Group of the month: Protodriloidae – just two species, but important

Protodriloidae is a family of only two species in the genus Protodriloides. Together, with the families Saccocirridae and Protodrilidae, they are part of the order Protodrilida. We will learn more about the other two families in the next two months. Hence, look forward to it. Both Protodriloides species […]

Månedens gruppe: Polygordiidae – de skinnende knutmark

Den neste interstitielle annelidfamilien jeg vil presentere for dere, er polygordiidene. Selv om disse markene er en del av MeioSkag-prosjektet vårt, som undersøker meiofauna-arter i Skagerrak, er de ikke egentlig meiofauna, da kroppslengden deres varierer fra 1 til 10 cm. De er altså ganske store. Men fordi de […]

Group of the month: Polygordiidae – the shiny knot worms

The next interstitial annelid family, I would like to present to you are the polygordiids. Even though these worms are part of our MeioSkag project investigating meiofaunal species in the Skagerrak, they are not truly meiofauna as their body length ranges from 1-10 cm. Hence, they are quite […]

God Jul! Merry Christmas!

Door 23: Who is walking on the snow? – Not just snow scorpionflies!

Door 9 of this advent calendar was focusing on snow scorpionflies (genus Boreus), little noticed but very interesting group of insect whose adults are active in winter and can be easily spotted walking on snow when the temperature is staying close to zero degree Celsius. Yet Boreus is […]

Door 22: Future Marine Climate Refugia by 2100

Climate change is an issue that has targeted, and continues to target, the tolerance limits of many organisms. Efforts by international institutions in the form of conventions primarily serve as a serious warning against destructive human activities and, secondly, as an attempt to address their consequences, including the […]

Door 21: Winter solstice – When the world pauses

Today is the winter solstice. Here in the northern hemisphere, it’s the shortest day and the longest night, a turning point when darkness reaches its peak and the slow return of light begins. For humans, the solstice often inspires reflection, celebration, or a simple awareness that winter has […]

Dør 20: Diputasen – Å være på den andre siden

En doktoravhandling er et viktig skritt i karrieren til en ung forsker. Men for disputasen trengs det faktisk tre til tango i Norge – kandidaten og de to eksterne opponentene. I år hadde jeg etter noen år igjen æren av å være en av de eksterne opponentene til […]

Door 20: PhD defense – Being on the other side

A PhD defense is an important step in the career of a young researcher. However, for the defense itself it needs actually three to tango in Norway – the candidate and the two external opponents. This year, I had after some years again the honor to be one […]

Door 19: New paper out: Insight into the phylogeny of the intertidal beetle genus Aegialites (Coleoptera, Salpingidae).

Published in Zoologica Scripta: link here. The paper named “Insight into the phylogeny of the intertidal beetle genus Aegialites (Coleoptera, Salpingidae)“, by Marianne N. Haugen, Vladimir I. Gusarov, Derek S. Sikes & Torsten H. Struck is now published in Zoologica Scripta. This paper, which is an important part […]

Door 18: The Gift That Takes a Year: The Quiet Story Behind Chinese Cordyceps

Written by Hilda Jakin Osei-Mireku What a “zombie fungus” and a ghost moth larva can teach us about patience, transformation, and waiting during Advent Advent is a season of waiting, anticipation, and preparation. While many of us count down the days to Christmas, high in regions such as […]

Door 17: Escaping Santa – reindeer of Svalbard

Svalbard reindeer running, photographed by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, under the Creative Commons.

Door 16: Is a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences relevant for biology researchers?

I have to admit that I do not follow the annual announcements of the various Nobel Prizes with equal interest. Perhaps not surprising, the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences usually scores rather low as compared to e.g., the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine that is by default […]

Door 15: Poecilogony – the rare phenomenon of larval developmental variation

For benthic invertebrates, the ability to disperse is usually limited to the short time period when they are larvae. A common way is to produce huge masses of tiny planktonic larvae that float and feed among the plankton, until they reach a big enough size to metamorphose to […]

Door 14: Mediterranean monk seals, out of the blue

It was just a week ago, while waiting to embark on a plane, that I received a very unexpected news: a Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) has been sighted near my hometown, in the North-western Adriatic Sea. As I first approached the world of pinnipeds through this species, […]

Door13: Suez Canal, why a one-way road?

If you look at the world today, it is impossible to ignore how deeply humans have reshaped it. We have turned forests into deserts and deserts into parks. We have warmed the atmosphere, melted ice sheets, and yet many still insist climate change is just a myth. Part […]

Dør 12: Er KI løsningen for å overvinne utfordringene ved sekvensering av genomer?

I 2018 foreslo Lewin et al det ambisiøse målet å sekvensere et referansegenom for hver eukaryotisk art på jorden innen 10 år, kalt «moonshot of biology». Dette forslaget førte til etableringen av Earth Biogenome Project (EBP), som fikk stor oppmerksomhet og fart i etterkant. Dette førte til etableringen […]

Door 12: Is AI the solution to overcome the challenges in sequencing genomes?

In 2018, Lewin et al proposed the ambitious goal to sequence a reference genome of each eukaryotic species on Earth within 10 years called the moonshot of biology. This proposal let to the establishment of the Earth Biogenome Project (EBP) and gained a lot of traction and momentum […]

Door 11: Recent news on tree ferns – the stasis-dynamism paradox in tree ferns resolved?

Earlier this year in January I reported in a CEG blog contribution about tree (or tree-like) ferns, a holiday discovery during a visit to the Adelaide Botanic Garden located in the capital of South Australia. The visit had inspired me to learn more about the biology of this […]

Door 10 – Species delimitation

In this blog post, I wish to write about species delimitation. What it is and methods we have to delimit species from each other. Species delimitation — what it is and why it matters Species delimitation is the set of methods and conceptual approaches used to determine where […]

Door 9: Who is walking on the snow? – Snow scorpionflies, of course!

Winter in Scandinavia is not considered an insect collecting season. Snow and ice are good for skiing and skateboarding, not for butterfly hunting. At winter, northern entomologists may enjoy a break, free of collecting work, finally with plenty of time to sort, look at and identify what was […]

Door 8: Jutulhogget – a geological heritage site discovered during the CEG group retreat

In the end of September, the CEG research group had its annual retreat. This year, we aimed for Røros, a small mining town in the east of Norway. On the way to the destination we noticed that we would pass the Jutulhogget, a spectacular geological formation a bit […]