ARCTOS network

The ARCTOS colloquium "Economic Valuation of Marine Ecosystems" held on August 13th was a well visited meeting.

Here are the presentations from the different speakers.

"The Total Economic Value concept" by M. Aanesen and J. Falk-Petersen, BFE/Akvaplan-niva (PDF)

"Valuation of the Barents Sea-Lofoten" by Kristin Magnussen, SWECO (PDF)

"Ecological valuation of Marine Ecosystems" by Paul Renaud, Akvaplan-NIVA (PDF)

Find more information on relevant Master and PhD courses:

Ingeborg won the poster competition on the IPY Oslo conference with the poster:

Influence of Seasonality and Climate Change on Bioaccumulation of Organic Contaminants in Arctic Marine Pelagic Food Webs (Ingeborg G. Hallanger, Nicholas A. Warner, Anders Ruus, Anita Evenset, Dorte Herzke, Guttorm Christensen, Geir Wing Gabrielsen and Katrine Borgå).

Read more here.

Link to UiT (Foto: Frank Ludvigsen)

At the largest polar science conference ever that officially finalises the International Polar Year, ARCTOS researchers were deeply involved by suggesting and chairing the session  “T3-3 Arctic-subArctic connections: Ecosystems and biodiversity”. Convener: Paul Wassmann NO. Co-conveners:  Elena Arashkevich RU, Susanne Fietz ES, Eddy Carmack CA”.

T 3-3 was probably the session with the largest number of submitted abstracts.  More then 55 talks addressed first systemecological results from the Fram Strait, the role of the most productive Arctic shelf, the wide Barents Sea and the highly dynamic role of the Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea. Further themes were:

• Changing sea ice conditions and water mass advection: effect on biota
• Sub-Arctic-Arctic connections: biodiversity and species that indicate cliamte change
• Sub-Arctic-Arctic connections the grand perspective provided by modelleing
• Sub-Arctic-Arctic connections: Climate, sea ice, food and and planktonic key species
• The bright future of the sub-Arctic-Arctic connection: light and primary production.

Many abstracts had to be moved to an extensive poster session.

My name is Virginie Ramasco (but everybody calls me Gin) and I am originally from a small village in the middle of the Italian Alps.

I have studied Biology at Bologna University in Italy and graduated in Ecology (Master Degree) in 2005 . Right after graduation I moved to Tromsø and took a master in Marine Ecology at NFH and graduated (again!) in 2008. I have been working with marine mammal research for the last 6 years, starting with my first master thesis in Italy on the interaction between coastal dolphins and traditional small fisheries along the coasts of Sicily.

When I moved to Norway I wanted to work with telemetry and movements. I was proposed a master thesis at the Institute of Marine Research on habitat use and feeding behavior of harbor seals in Vesterålen. During the last years of my education I focused on the acquisition of quantitative methods, like mathematical modeling and spatial statistics and that's how I became an addict in R programming and GIS softwares.

My PhD thesis is about the application of such methods for the understanding of the feeding strategies of coastal seals and of their impact on the relevant fish resources in the Porsangerfjord.