Arctic Biology

5 August 2009

A UNIS master student made an unusual find the other day in Svea, the mining settlement south of Longyearbyen. Just outside the mess hall she discovered two small trees, and it turns out they are tiny plum trees!

9 July 2009

There have been few scientific investigations into the invertebrate fauna of bird nests in the Polar regions. Now a study done by scientists from UNIS, NINA and NPI can shed some more light on the life of insects and mites in bird nests on Svalbard.

22 May 2009

Longyearbyen is a peaceful place with a close to non-existent crime rate. However, for a short period in spring things change dramatically. The peaceful eider is being subjected to rather shocking thefts straight in front of its beak! The perpetrator is the gluttonous glaucous gull who does not stop at anything to steal the food out of the eider’s beak. This behaviour is now under scrutiny by UNIS ecological detectives!

31 October 2008

Until now scientists have believed that the marine life in the Polar Ocean is hibernating through the long, Arctic night. Recent research shows evidence to the contrary. – This knowledge may even impact our understanding of the exchange of climate gasses between the ocean and the atmosphere, says UNIS Professor Jørgen Berge.

30 September 2008

UNIS scientists have examined the marine ecosystems of the Svalbard fjords and found several exiting results which can be directly linked to the climate changes in the Arctic.

18 September 2008

This fall UNIS botanist Inger Greve Alsos and colleagues, students, and locals have gathered seeds from the Svalbard flora. These seeds will be the first non-nutrition seeds to be stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.