Door 23: Struggles, Setbacks & Solutions

I’m three out of four semesters deep into an MSc, meaning that in a few short months I will be delivering a completed thesis, with detailed results and an in-depth discussion. I’ve had a timeline laid out since the very beginning and am largely on track. That isn’t […]

Door 22: Mystery bird uniting different museum groups

Following the example of Pia’s post about the gift of collaboration, I will introduce you to a side project I did with two colleagues from a different research group at today’s door. It started with a strange sighting from a friend: a bird that looked like a species […]

Door 18: Forgotten Reefs; Struggles for Survival in the Strait of Hormuz

For the next door of our Advent calendar, I’d like to take you on a journey to the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most politically significant waterways. It is located between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman in the northern Indian Ocean, and acts as […]

Door 16: Small creatures and studying them matters

For today’s advent calendar, I want to talk about my favourite organisms, the protists. In one of my last years advent calendar posts, I talked about their diversity and importance for ecosystem functioning and, therefore, felt like introducing this recent paper by Perrin & Dorrel (2024) fits the […]

Door 15: CEG involvement in the European BGE genome sequencing project

CEG research group members Torsten Struck and myself are coordinating the task of Community Sampling, within WP5 of the the EU-funded BioGenomics Europe project. We have now completed our task, well before the deadline of February 2025 set by BGE. Our task began with annoucing two public calls, […]

Door 14: A miracle of long distance dispersal? A wingless beetle species occurring on distant subantarctic islands

One of the most remarkable beetle species occurring in the Falkland Islands is Leptusa (Halmaeusa) atriceps (Waterhouse, 1875), presented on the photo above (photo by Orlov et al 2019). It is a small, 4 to 5 mm long, wingless beetle associated mostly with decomposing seaweed on the beach. […]

Door 13: Discovering hidden microscopic diversity in Norway

Whenever you hear the word fungi, chances are high that you are thinking of the colourful variation of mushroom fruiting bodies popping up in high abundance during the fall. Or maybe you’re thinking of the vast webs of underground mycelia that most fungi produce. For some, the frightening […]

Dør 13: Oppdag det skjulte mikroskopiske mangfoldet i Norge

Når du hører ordet sopp, er sjansen stor for at du tenker på den fargerike variasjonen av soppfruktlegemer som popper opp i store mengder om høsten. Eller kanskje du tenker på de enorme nettene av underjordiske mycel som de fleste sopper produserer. For noen er kanskje den skremmende […]

Door 11: Finding new species to Norway – how easy can it be?

For most people, discovering new species seems like an extraordinary event, something that happens only once in a lifetime or at least something very rare. However, for some groups of organisms, particularly understudied ones, it’s actually very easy to come across a new species to science and perhaps […]

Christmas in the Ocean: The Marvel of Christmas Tree Worms

Today, I want to introduce a fascinating group of worms that are particularly relevant during the Christmas season. Known as Christmas tree worms, these marine annelids belong to the family Serpulidae. They are renowned for their radiolar crowns and their habit of dwelling within calcareous tubes attached on […]