Mapping distribution of cirratulid using Norwegian collections

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 […]

Finishing the tale of stone

In last year’s advents calendar, we presented the Master theses of two students. One of the students, Stian Aleksander Helsem has successfully defended his thesis this year. I still remember the first time we met. He came into my office being interested in writing his Master thesis with […]

A visit, a small boat, a worm = a new record of an invasive species and a paper

In October 2018, Vasily Radashevsky from the Russian Academy of Sciences briefly visited our collection to go through the material of Spionidae, marine worms of the phyla Annelida, the segmented worms. Vasily is very enthusiastic about spionids in all there facets and he is one of the world’s […]

Stygocapitella – an incredibly old worm found beneath your beach towel

Species of the genus Stygocapitella belong to the ringed worms, also known as Annelida. Annelids are worms like earthworms, lugworm or christmas tree worms, but also leeches or very tiny worms living in the spaces between the sand grains, called the interstitium. Such an interstitial group of worms […]

What causes species not to change despite ongoing evolution?

Cryptic species have for long time been considered as purely a taxonomical challenge. However, in the last decade it has been shown that their recognition has also consequences for several other biological disciplines. Recently, their importance for understanding certain evolutionary processes has been highlighted. Most prominent among these […]

From the forest to the deep sea

This week a member of our group, Torsten Struck, published a review paper on the two annelid families Parergodrilidae and Orbiniidae together with Miguel Meca from the University Museum of Bergen as the first author and Anna Zhadan from the Lomonosov Moscow State University in the journal Diversity. […]

The first defense

The FEZ group has only recently been established and hence so far we had no PhD student graduating from our group. This year was the premiere. Jose successfully defended his thesis with much appraisal by his opponents. Given the circumstances of this year it was a digital one […]