For this year’s Advent Calendar, we’ve decided to theme ourselves around climate change and conservation. For my first blog entry, I’ve decided to write more of a background about the general need for marine biodiversity conservation, and some opinions on who should care, and why. I will then […]

As the festive season approaches, many of us find ourselves pondering the perfect gifts for our loved ones. Is for this reason that, in this post, I’d like to suggest a unique present that transcends the boundaries between scientific and non-scientific interests—a coffee table book titled “The Art […]

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“, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 at the blog, we wish to present Hydroza, which is a class found within phylum Cnidaria. This lesser-known taxa is perhaps more known than thought, as well-known species like Portuguese man-o-wars (Physalia physalis), the freshwater genus Hydra, fire coral (Milleporidae), and by-the-wind sailors (Velella velella). Also, […]

Mitochondria are the energy plant of our cells. Originally, they were bacteria, but then they were captured by the ancestors of eukaryotes (among others all animals, mushrooms and plants) and used to produce energy for the cell. This is also known as the endosymbiotic theory. An inheritance from […]

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 […]

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 […]