The hidden invasion along the Norwegian coast

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“, […]

Doing genomic research with a masonry trowel

When you think about genomic research and sequencing genomes like it is the goal of the Earth Biogenome Project (EBP), Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE) or InvertOmics you have in mind all these new fancy technologies called Next-Generation, Third-generation or High-through-put sequencing. All these amazing advances in technologies allowing […]

The importance of the small stuff for science

Yesterday, we published an preprint on the meiofauna and why it is important to study them and which scientific questions should be addressed next. The publication involved 42 researchers from 44 institutions all around the world. The research was initiated and led by Alejandro Martínez and Diego Fontaneto […]

Teaching about sea squirts, worms and skeleton shrimps in Drøbak

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 […]

Group of the month: Ostracoda

Sometimes, work and home come together in ways you don’t expect. I decided to get into aquascaping this summer, growing underwater plants and keeping nutrient cycles alive and self-sustaining between the soil, the plants, and small invertebrates. In my research, I was surprised to come across a little […]

Group of the Month: Placozoa

They may look a bit like bacteria, but Placozoans are actually animals! These microscopic blobs might, in fact, be key to understanding our own deep evolutionary history, and how the diversity of other animals came to be. Although they were discovered way back in 1883, there are only […]

Group of the Month: Monogenea

Monogeneans are a group of parasitic flatworms (Platyheminthes). The group is species-rich and systematists assign them to a class within the flatworms. Together with flukes (class Trematoda) and tapeworms (class Cestoda) they form the superclass Neodermata. The name-giving feature Neodermata is that the original epidermis is replaced by a […]

Group of the month: Feather duster worms (Annelida, Sabellidae)

This month it is time for another group of polychaetes, the family Sabellidae. Sabellids are present from intertidal to abyssal marine waters all around the world (Rouse et al. 2022). They inhabit both soft substrates such as sand or mud and hard substrates such as rocks or coral […]

Group of the month: Nemertea

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 […]

Group of the month: Parergodrilidae (Annelida)

This month’s ”Group of the month” is a bit of shameless self-promotion. I will present an animal group today, where we conduct quite a lot of research on. However, it is nonetheless really interesting and worth to learn more about it. The family Parergodrilidae belongs to the annelids […]