Quantifying the Detection Sensitivity and Precision of qPCR and ddPCR Mechanisms for eDNA Samples.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) detection employing quantitative PCR (qPCR) and droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) offers a non-invasive and efficient approach for monitoring aquatic organisms. Accurate and sensitive quantification of eDNA is crucial for tracking rare and invasive species and understanding the biodiversity abundance and distribution of aquatic organisms. This study compares the sensitivity and quantification precision of qPCR and ddPCR for eDNA surveys through Bayesian inference using latent parameters from both known concentration (standards) and environmental samples across three teleost fish species assays.

The Growth and Decay of Intense GNSS Amplitude and Phase Scintillation During Non-Storm Conditions.

A multi-instrument study is conducted at the dayside polar ionosphere to investigate the spatio-temporal evolution of scintillation in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals during non-storm conditions. Bursts of intense amplitude and phase scintillation started to occur at 9 MLT and persisted for more than 1 hour implying the simultaneous existence of Fresnel and large-scale sized irregularities of significant strength in the pre-noon sector. Measurements from the EISCAT radar in Svalbard (ESR) revealed the presence of dense plasma structures with significant gradients in regions of strong Joule heating/fast flows and soft precipitation when scintillation was enhanced.

The Core of the Matter-Importance of Identification Method and Biological Replication for Benthic Marine Monitoring.

Benthic macrofauna are important and widely used biological indicators of marine ecosystems as they have limited mobility and therefore integrate the effects of local environmental stressors over time. Recently, environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis has provided a potentially more resource-efficient approach for benthic biomonitoring than traditional morphology-based methods. Several studies have compared eDNA with morphology-based monitoring, but few have compared the two approaches using the exact same sediment cores.

Impaired Balance Predicts Cardiovascular Disease in 70-Year-Old Individuals-An Observational Study From the Healthy Aging Initiative.

Background: Limited research has explored balance problems as a prospective risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). This study aimed to characterize the association between balance measures and the risk of incident CVD in a population of 70-year-olds.

Methods And Results: From 2012 to 2022 a cohort of 4927 older individuals who were CVD free underwent balance assessments using a balance board.

Ecological implications of the pink salmon invasion in northern Norway-Aggregative responses and terrestrial transfer by white-tailed eagles.

Over the last 10 years, the spawning population of invasive pink salmon () has increased in the river systems in northern Norway to a level that is causing concern about their impact on endemic fauna and ecosystem processes. The scale of transfer of pink salmon carcasses into the terrestrial ecosystem is likely to be a key determinant of terrestrial impact. Bears ( sp.

Exploring temporal activity of dholes, their prey, and competitors in East Java, Indonesia.

Dholes () are endangered large carnivores found in scattered populations in Asia. One of the main threats to dholes is the decreasing prey availability throughout their distribution range. In the present study, we used camera trap data collected over 6 years to investigate the temporal activity patterns of dholes and their putative prey species in Baluran National Park in Java, Indonesia.

Identification of fragments targeting SMYD3 using highly sensitive kinetic and multiplexed biosensor-based screening.

A 1056-membered fragment library has been screened against SMYD3 using a novel multiplexed experimental design implemented in a grating coupled interferometry (GCI)-based biosensor. SMYD3 is a prospective target for anticancer drugs and the focus has initially been on discovery of inhibitors of its lysine methyl transferase activity. However, it has multiple protein interaction partners and several potential roles in carcinogenesis.

Bacterioplankton taxa compete for iron along the early spring-summer transition in the Arctic Ocean.

Microbial assemblages under the sea ice of the Dease Strait, Canadian Arctic, were sequenced for metagenomes of a small size fraction (0.2-3 μm). The community from early March was typical for this season, with - and Gammaproteobacteria as the dominant taxa, followed by Thaumarchaeota and Bacteroidetes.

Brute force prey metabarcoding to explore the diets of small invertebrates.

Prey metabarcoding has become a popular tool in molecular ecology for resolving trophic interactions at high resolution, from various sample types and animals. To date, most predator-prey studies of small-sized animals (<1 mm) have met the problem of overabundant predator DNA in dietary samples by adding blocking primers/peptide nucleic acids. These primers aim to limit the PCR amplification and detection of the predator DNA but may introduce bias to the prey composition identified by interacting with sequences that are similar to those of the predator.

Elusive mustelids-18 months in the search of near-threatened stoat () and weasel () reveals low captures.

Stoat () and weasel ( are hard to monitor as they are elusive of nature and leave few identifying marks in their surroundings. Stoat and weasel are both fully protected in Denmark and are thought to be widely distributed throughout the country. Despite this stoat and weasel were listed on the Danish Red List as Near Threatened in 2019, as their densities and population trends are unknown.

Is the diet cyclic phase-dependent in boreal vole populations?

Herbivorous rodents in boreal, alpine and arctic ecosystems are renowned for their multi-annual population cycles. Researchers have hypothesised that these cycles may result from herbivore-plant interactions in various ways. For instance, if the biomass of preferred food plants is reduced after a peak phase of a cycle, rodent diets can be expected to become dominated by less preferred food plants, leading the population to a crash.

Effects of resource availability and interspecific interactions on Arctic and red foxes' winter use of ungulate carrion in the Fennoscandian low-Arctic tundra.

In the Arctic tundra, predators face recurrent periods of food scarcity and often turn to ungulate carcasses as an alternative food source. As important and localized resource patches, carrion promotes co-occurrence of different individuals, and its use by predators is likely to be affected by interspecific competition. We studied how interspecific competition and resource availability impact winter use of carrion by Arctic and red foxes in low Arctic Fennoscandia.

When details matter: Integrative revision of Holarctic Edwards (Diptera, Mycetophilidae), including mapping of its mitogenome, leads to the description of four new pseudocryptic species.

Background: The small genus Edwards, 1941 of the subfamily Gnoristinae (Diptera, Mycetophilidae) is so far known to harbour four species from the Palaearctic, Nearctic and Neotropical Regions. Extensive DNA barcoding of fungus gnats of the family Mycetophilidae through the International Barcode of Life project (iBOL) have initiated integrative studies resulting in taxonomic upgrades and a better understanding of many species and their delimitation. The opportunity was also taken to describe the mitogenome of a member of for the first time.

Thrombolytic Treatment in Wake-Up Stroke: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis of Treatment Effectiveness in the Norwegian Stroke Registry.

Background: Previous clinical trials found improved outcome of thrombolytic treatment in patients with ischemic wake-up stroke (WUS) selected by advanced imaging techniques. The authors assessed the effectiveness of thrombolytic treatment in patients with WUS in a nationwide stroke registry.

Methods And Results: Using propensity score matching, the authors assessed the effectiveness and safety of thrombolytic treatment versus no thrombolytic treatment in 726 patients (363 matched pairs) with WUS in the Norwegian Stroke Registry in 2014 to 2019.

An explainable machine learning model of cognitive decline derived from speech.

Introduction: Traditional Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) screening lacks the sensitivity and timeliness required to detect subtle indicators of cognitive decline. Multimodal artificial intelligence technologies using only speech data promise improved detection of neurodegenerative disorders.

Methods: Speech collected over the telephone from 91 older participants who were cognitively healthy ( = 29) or had diagnoses of AD ( = 30) or amnestic MCI (aMCI;  = 32) was analyzed with multimodal natural language and speech processing methods.

Incidence of dementia over a period of 20 years in a Norwegian population.

Introduction: In Norway, the prevalence of dementia is higher than in demographically comparable, high income countries, but reliable incidence studies are lacking. This study calculated the incidence of age-specific dementia from 2000 to 2019.

Methods: Participants from The Tromsø Study ( = 44,214) were included.

Phylogeography and molecular diversity of two highly abundant amphipod species in a rapidly changing Arctic Ocean.

Rapid warming in the Arctic is drastically impacting marine ecosystems, affecting species communities and food-web structure. Pelagic amphipods are a major component of the Arctic zooplankton community and represent a key link between secondary producers and marine vertebrates at higher trophic levels. Two co-existing species dominate in the region: the larger , considered a true polar species and the smaller , a sub-Arctic, boreal-Atlantic species.

Lipid Levels During Adult Lifetime in Men and Women With and Without a Subsequent Incident Myocardial Infarction: A Longitudinal Analysis of Data From the Tromsø Study 1974 to 2016.

Background The atherosclerotic effect of an adverse lipid profile is assumed to accumulate throughout life, leading to increased risk of myocardial infarction (MI). Still, little is known about age at onset and duration of unfavorable lipid levels before MI. Methods and Results Longitudinal data on serum lipid levels for 26 130 individuals (50.

Increased importance of cool-water fish at high latitudes emerges from individual-level responses to warming.

High latitude ecosystems are experiencing the most rapid warming on earth, expected to trigger a diverse array of ecological responses. Climate warming affects the ecophysiology of fish, and fish close to the cold end of their thermal distribution are expected to increase somatic growth from increased temperatures and a prolonged growth season, which in turn affects maturation schedules, reproduction, and survival, boosting population growth. Accordingly, fish species living in ecosystems close to their northern range edge should increase in relative abundance and importance, and possibly displace cold-water adapted species.

Novel frontier in wildlife monitoring: Identification of small rodent species from fecal pellets using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS).

Small rodents are prevalent and functionally important across the world's biomes, making their monitoring salient for ecosystem management, conservation, forestry, and agriculture. There is a growing need for cost-effective and noninvasive methods for large-scale, intensive sampling. Fecal pellet counts readily provide relative abundance indices, and given suitable analytical methods, feces could also allow for the determination of multiple ecological and physiological variables, including community composition.

Limited predatory effects on infaunal macrobenthos community patterns in intertidal soft-bottom of Arctic coasts.

Predation shapes marine benthic communities and affects prey species population dynamics in tropic and temperate coastal systems. However, information on its magnitude in systematically understudied Arctic coastal habitats is scarce. To test predation effects on the diversity and structure of Arctic benthic communities, we conducted caging experiments in which consumers were excluded from plots at two intertidal sedimentary sites in Svalbard (Longyearbyen and Thiisbukta) for 2.

Benthic Dissolved Silicon and Iron Cycling at Glaciated Patagonian Fjord Heads.

Glacier meltwater supplies silicon (Si) and iron (Fe) sourced from weathered bedrock to downstream ecosystems. However, the extent to which these nutrients reach the ocean is regulated by the nature of the benthic cycling of dissolved Si and Fe within fjord systems, given the rapid deposition of reactive particulate fractions at fjord heads. Here, we examine the benthic cycling of the two nutrients at four Patagonian fjord heads through geochemical analyses of sediment pore waters, including Si and Fe isotopes (δSi and δFe), and reaction-transport modeling for Si.

Environmental niche overlap in sibling planktonic species and in Arctic fjords.

Knowledge of environmental preferences of the key planktonic species, such as copepods in the Arctic, is crucial to understand ecosystem function and its future under climate change. Here, we assessed the environmental conditions influencing the development stages of Atlantic and Arctic , and we quantified the extent to which their niches overlap by incorporating multiple environmental data. We based our analysis on a 3-year seasonal collection of zooplankton by sediment traps, located on moorings in two contrasting Svalbard fjords: the Arctic Rijpfjorden and the Atlantic-influenced Kongsfjorden.

Hand grip strength and risk of incident venous thromboembolism: The Tromsø study.

Background: Hand grip strength (HGS), a common proxy of whole-body muscular strength, is associated with a wide range of adverse health outcomes and mortality. However, there are limited data on the association between HGS and risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE).

Objectives: We aimed to investigate the association between HGS and risk of incident VTE in a population-based cohort.