Det første ArtsDatabanken-prosjektet til vårt gruppemedlem Torsten Struck ble avsluttet med suksess denne måneden. Prosjektet var «Biodiversitet i det marine algebeltet» sammen med samarbeidspartnere fra Universitetet i Skøvde (Sverige), Universitetet i Gøteborg (Sverige), Humboldt-universitetet i Berlin (Tyskland) og Universitetet i Bonn (Tyskland). Prosjektet startet for fire år siden, […]

Today I’m going to be talking about some cute little slugs, the Onchidioideans. These pulmonate, that is, lung-bearing, gastropods are ubiquitous across the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, favoring the intertidal. What makes so many gastropods so interesting is their torsion, the rotational steps they undergo during development resulting […]

As written in our last blog of the advent calendar, we had many changes already last year with a new group leader and a new group webpage, which we is still develop further this year. However, another change becoming effective this year is that we change the name […]

The Biodiversity Genomic Europe (BGE) project has three streams dealing with the biodiversity crisis. In the blog so far, we have mostly presented about one stream, the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) one concentrating on the genomic side of the project. However, another stream is concentrating on the […]

Today is the 13th of December, as today I have chosen a different aspect of “diversity” namely the diversity of tasks a PhD-student at the Natural History museum can and have to do. Being a PhD-student involves a rollercoaster of emotions and a very diverse, flexible, demanding and […]

Last week Line Willersrud, a Master student in our group, successfully defended her Master thesis “Assessing genetic biodiversity in Caprellidae”. She worked very hard for her thesis by collecting caprellid species along the Norwegian coast as part of the Artsdatabanken project “Assessing biodiversity in the marine algae belt“, […]

As part of the ArtsDatabanken project “Assessing biodiversity in the marine algae belt“, we taught a class of eager students and consultants about the species of our project. The course did not only comprise theoretical lectures, but really hands-on experience. We went out to different spots in Drøbak […]

This month’s group of animals on the spotlight are nemerteans, also known as ribbon worms, vermiform creatures belonging to the phylum Nemertea. They include more than 1300 species, typically long and slender with soft contractile bodies. Most nemerteans are marine, predominantly benthic or bottom dwellers, but some species […]

Summer is here, so it’s time for the Artsdatabanken project team to go back to the field. Or to the sea, in our case. After driving 500km from the east to the west coast, through beautiful mountains and majestic fjords, we arrived at Austevoll (Figure 1), an archipelago […]

Spooky scary skeleton shrimp, send shivers down your spine, their appearance will shock your soul, but certainly don’t seal your doom tonight! Family Caprellidea, otherwise known as skeleton shrimp, are small marine arthropods that are found world-wide. Using their specialized ‘feet’, called pereopods, these slender, segmented invertebrates cling […]

We were fortunate to obtain finding from ArtsDatabanken for new project. Yesterday the contracts were signed and hence our project can start soon. We are an international team of researchers: Torsten Struck and Rita Austin from Norway, Arne Nygren from Sweden, and Maria Capa from Spain. Maybe not […]

After introducing the Artsdatabanken project and telling about our summer collection trips (Trøndelag and Oslo), it is time to present the six invertebrate groups that we are working with. From star ascidians to Christmas-tree worms, this seems to be the adequate time of the year to get to […]

The year 2021 was full of unexpected happenings and opportunities for both students, as in me Marianna Khodabandehlou and my fellow student, Sine Hagestad. We both were doing our last semester in our Biosciences degree and wanted to gain some hands-on experience before we began our Masters. We […]

In the last two weeks of August, the ArtsDatabanken team has came together for the first big field trip. While sadly not everyone could join, seven researchers from Oslo, Berlin and Gothenburg comprised the diverse and highly motivated group. The destination was Sletvik, a biological station in the […]

The marine algae belt comprising kelp forests, seagrass meadows and rocky reefs with coralline red seaweeds is one of the most active primary producing environments in the sea. It also harbors are great diversity of animals including sea squirts, ribbon worms, nick worms, serpulid worms, spionid worms and […]