27. November 2020

Management of endangered species by culling mesopredators is increasingly common. To what extent such programs work as intended, is less clear. In a new study, COAT researchers evaluated the impact of red fox culling on a threatened ptarmigan species.

26. October 2020 Measures of plant chemical traits are often achieved by merging several leaves, masking potential foliar variation within and among plant individuals. In a new study, COAT researchers developed a new application of Near-infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS) methodology that provides measures of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and silicon from single, whole leaves down to the size of just 4 mm.

13. October 2020

Vegetation monitoring was carried out in late July and early August in Komagdalen and Vestre Jakobselv on the Varanger peninsula. Besides the annual monitoring in heath and meadow sites, the fieldteam also conducted point intercept frequency in newly established heath sites further away from the productive river valleys.

12. October 2020 MSc in Ecobiology Filippo Marolla (COAT) will Wednesday 21 October 2020 at 12:15 defend his thesis for the PhD degree in natural science. Title:"Understanding and forecasting population dynamics in changing arctic ecosystems" For more information see: https://uit.no/tavla/artikkel/702876/disputas_-_msc_in_ecobiology_filippo_marolla

28. September 2020 The average temperature for June, July and August at Svalbard Airport was 7.2 degrees, which is 3 degrees above normal, and 0.5 degrees above the old summer record from 2015. For Svalbard Airport, a series of measurements dating back to 1899 has been prepared. This year's summer is extreme. It joins the ranks of hot summers for the last 20 to 30 years, and stands out completely from the...

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.