Door 20: Looking at the past to understand the future of Leopard Seals

Cover picture by Sue Flood Last time, I wrote about how glacial-isolation caused the divergence of a small population of ringed seals in the Ilulissat Icefjord, West Greenland. The text ended with a final consideration on the importance of developing research plan to retrieve molecular data for Arctic […]

Door 9: Divergence by isolation in Marine Mammals – the case of Kangia ringed seals

Cover: Picture by Greenland Institute of Natural Resources When I need to take a break from work, I often stroll around the Oslo Natural History Museum. Zoological collections have always fascinated me since I was a child, and now that I work for one of them I`m able […]

Animal of the month: Cystophora cristata

By Pia Merete Eriksen and Rita M. Austin I think most of us conceptualize a seal as a comical or cute animal, darting through open waters – I don’t think many of us envisage blood-red balloons and bulging sacs, specialized for a ritual of dominance and mating. Enter, […]

Sea ice reduction affects genetic differentiation of polar bears from Svalbard

Climate change affects essentially all ecosystems, and there is an intense discussion about the consequences of increasing temperatures. Loss of Arctic sea-ice is certainly among the most obvious consequences, and significant effects on ice-dependent species can be safely assumed. This includes most likely negative effects on polar bears […]