Arctic Biology

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.

20 August 2008

UNIS associate professor Pernille Bronken Eidesen has been awarded His Majesty the King’s Gold Medal for her PhD thesis on Arctic-Alpine plants, which she defended at the University of Oslo (UiO) last December. Eidesen will receive the honors on September 2, 2008.

17 December 2007

In 2004 a group of UNIS geology students found an ancient polar bear jawbone at Svalbard. Now it turns out that this find could confirm that polar bear as a species has already survived one interglacial period, bringing hope that the first and foremost Arctic symbol can – in fact – also survive the current warming climate.

12 July 2007

Climate change may bring more snow in the winter on Svalbard. Can the plants that thrive in the current harsh Arctic climate survive such a development? UNIS biologist Elisabeth Cooper hopes to find the answer – with the help of snow fences.

15 June 2007

Research done by associate professor Inger Greve Alsos (now at UNIS) and co-workers at the National Centre for Biosystematics shows that plants have spread frequently in the Arctic and that an increase in temperatures may result in that many new plants species pop up in Svalbard.