24. September 2020

There were five dens with confirmed reproduction this summer, despite the low small rodent abundance. Three were in the eastern half of the Peninsual and two further to the west. It is likely that there were some places with some remaining lemmings, as quite a few lemming remains were found on at least one den.

24. September 2020

Thanks to local forces already in Svalbard and Ingrid traveling up, the annual vegetation monitoring in Svalbard was successfully carried out despite restrictions to travel due to covid-19.

28. August 2020 The new Reconyx cameras adapted to COAT’s small mammal photoboxes arrived (at last!) in August and have just enabled us to finalize the monitoring system for the invasive Eastern European vole (formerly named the Sibling vole) in Svalbard.Read more: Community-based actions against an invasive rodent and its zoonotic parasite in Longyearbyen.

25. August 2020 The COAT article “Can novel pest outbreaks drive ecosystem transitions in northern-boreal birch forest?” in Journal of Ecology was shortlisted for the Harper Prize early researcher award earlier this spring.

24. March 2020 Recently the Moss Tundra Module by Ravolainen et.al has published the paper High Arctic ecosystem states: Conceptual models of vegetation change to guide long-term monitoring and research in Ambo’s special edition Terrestrial biodiversity in a rapidly changing Arctic.

24. March 2020

The Research Council of Norway has funded a new three-year project that will be led by core personnel from the tundra-forest module of COAT.

18. March 2020

Fram Forum is an annual popular scientific publication of the Fram Centre. COAT researchers contribute with several articles in the 2020 issue.

6. February 2020

On January 27^th Statens Naturoppsyn (SNO) together with Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) and COAT released 14 arctic fox pups on Varanger Peninsula.

13. December 2019

COAT researchers Ole Petter Laksforsmo Vindstad and Jane Uhd Jepsen have won the first Fægri price for an article on geometrid moths in the Norwegian popular science journal Naturen.

8. October 2019

COAT Svalbard has now implemented and operationalized several types of research infrastructure in the core areas in Nordenskiöld Land and in Brøgger Peninsula.

27. September 2019

COAT Varanger has established small rodent exclosures that distinguish between direct and indirect climate impacts on vegetation.

28. August 2019

As a part of the project COAT-Tools we are collaborating with the department of computer science here at UiT. They are working on sensor technology that can help us collect the data we need in an efficient way.

1. July 2019 Many arctic bird populations have declined substantially during the last decades. Preliminary analyses in connection with the development of an ecosystem-based assessment system for Norwegian arctic tundra have shown that this also applies to COAT’s intensive monitoring sites in Varanger Peninsula. Many bird species are particularly vulnerable during the breeding season, and especially those...

17. December 2018

Outbreaks by geometrid moths have caused extensive damage to mountain birch forest in northern Scandinavia during the last 15 years. A new study helps to explain why the damage has been so severe and suggests that the forest may fail to recover in the most heavily affected areas.

19. November 2018

Screening of the photos from trail cameras has just revealed that one arctic fox litter was born on Varanger Peninsula this summer.

6. November 2018 We proudly announce that the first three COAT weather stations at the Varanger peninsula are now installed. They started transmitting data during the first week of October. The stations are located in the birch forest in Bergebydalen (150 masl), in the tall shrub zone in Torvhaugdalen (268 masl) and at the top of Reinhaugen (470 masl). Links to the stations will be available at the COAT...