Blogs of the CEG research group

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

For this December Sunday, I want to tell you about my favourite bird that also happens to be the national bird of Norway – the white-throated dipper (Cinclus cinclus, fossekall på norsk). These lovely little dippers can be found in Oslo as well, and I had a pleasure […]

Introduction Taxonomy is the science of classifying, naming, and describing organisms based on shared characteristics. The classification of living things, has its origins in ancient Greece and in its modern form dates back nearly 250 years, to Carl Von Linné’s Systema Naturae (1735) where Linnaeus introduced the binomial […]

In a previous blogpost, I asked the question how long species are able to form hybrids after their lineages diverged — and I showed that certain species of flowering plants (angiosperms) retain this ability for at least 50 million years (Ma). This question is of particular significance because […]

The order and balance found in nature is truly mesmerising. Although studying biology daily and coming across all the phenomena almost every day, I still find myself astonished by the ideas creating the world around us. The complexity of many systems seems to be detached from the natural […]

Advent calendars usually contain tiny samples of what a brand has created that year. So, I thought I’d do the same, except instead of chocolates or a mascara, I’m going to share some snapshots of moments from our own little group CEG in and out of the museum. […]

While working in the Museum collections, I came across a small cardboard box containing few scattered bones. In that moment, I found kind of amusing that such a tiny box contained the remains of the largest living animal: the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus Linnaeus, 1758). Whales have captured […]

I vår tid er vitenskapen utsatt for økende press fra falske nyheter og politikere som undergraver tilliten til vitenskapelige institusjoner. Det gjøres derfor forsøk på å undergrave vitenskapelig integritet fra utsiden. I slike tider er det enda viktigere enn noensinne at det vitenskapelige miljøet holder seg til sine […]

In our times, science has come under increasing pressure by fake news and politicians undermining the trust in scientific institutions. Hence, efforts are made to undermine scientific integrity from the outside. In such times, it is even more important than ever that the scientific community adheres to its […]

Som en del av vårt nye ArtsDatabanken-prosjekt MeioSkag undersøker vi interstitielle og meiofauna arter som forekommer i sedimenter i den norske delen av Skagerrak. Dette omfatter blant annet de såkalte interstitielle familiene innenfor Annelida. I denne serien «Månedens gruppe» vil jeg nå presentere de ulike familiene som ikke […]

As part of our new ArtsDatabanken project MeioSkag, we are investigating interstitial and meiofaunal species occurring in sediments of the Norwegian part of the Skagerrak. Among others, this includes the so-called interstitial families within Annelida. In this series “Group of the month”, I will now present the different […]

For et par dager siden publiserte vi genomet til en armfotinger, nærmere bestemt Discradisca antillarum, i tidsskriftet G3. Brakiopoder er en gruppe skallede, filterfôrende marine virvelløse dyr, også kjent som armfotinger. Selv om de overfladisk ligner på muslinger, er brakiopoder ikke det. Brakiopoder har skall på rygg- og […]

A couple of days ago we published the genome of a brachiopod species, in specific Discradisca antillarum in the journal G3. Brachiopods are a group of shelled, filter-feeding marine invertebrates also known as lamp shalls. Though they superficially resemble bivalve mollusks, brachiopods are not. Brachiopods have the shells […]

As October is best known for the Halloween season, I’d like to dedicate this article to one of the most famous spooky symbols – bats. These creatures are phenomenal on multiple levels. As you may already know, they are the only know flying mammals; they communicate through echolocation […]

Annelida, eller segmenterte ormer, er en stor og mangfoldig gruppe av metazoer med over 20 000 arter, som blant annet omfatter meitemark, igler, echiurider, sipunculider og polychaeter. Med over 300 arter er polychaete-familien Cirratulidae en av de mest artsrike og vanlige i bentiske samfunn i en rekke habitater. […]

Annelida, or segmented worms, is a vast and diverse group of metazoans of over 20000 species that includes, amongst others, earthworms, leeches, echiurids, sipunculids and polychaetes. With over 300 species the polychaete family Cirratulidae is one of the most species-rich and common in benthic assemblages in a variety […]

We all know a worm. We all know a snail. Or at least, we think we do.But nature often blurs the lines we draw so confidently. In the case of vermetid snails, also known as “worm snails,” appearances can be deceiving. These creatures look like worms but are, […]

Den marine biologiske mangfoldigheten i Europa anses generelt å være godt kjent sammenlignet med andre regioner, spesielt i den globale sørlige halvkule. Imidlertid er også i europeiske farvann noen habitater og regioner knapt studert, og mange arter kan fortsatt være uoppdagede og ubeskrevne. Dette er for eksempel vist […]

The marine biodiversity of Europe is generally considered well known comparison to other regions, especially of the global South. However, also in European waters, some habitats and regions have been scarcely studied and many species could remain to be discovered and described. This has been shown, for example, […]