Members of the Ecology and Evolution Fagruppe will be heavily affected by the area reduction process planned over the coming year. All the facilities that we use regularly, from the palaeoecology labs on the 4th floor to the DNA and systematics labs on the 2nd floor, will be moved from A to B Block in Thormøhlensgate 53. Examples of the ongoing work done by our group in these laboratories include: extraction of ancient pollen grains from sediments to reconstruct past vegetation communities; scanning, weighing and measuring of leaves to establish trait-environment relationships; isolation of parasites from bird nests to investigate host-parasite interactions; and metabarcoding of fungi from soils to better understand the relationships between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
The labs are not just used by members of the Faggruppe in Ecology and Evolution. Members from other Faggrupper, including research related to organism biology, marine biodiversity and deep-sea biology, are regular users of these facilities. In fact, these laboratories were established following a procedure in which the five research groups from two faculties: Botany & Zoology (from the University Museum,UM), Marine Biology, Terrestrial Ecology and Microbiology (from the Department of Biology, BIO) were merged into a shared research facility. This process was initiated in 2004 during the establishment of BIO and then later, in 2009 when BIO was relocated in new buildings on Marineholmen. The laboratories are co-financed and managed by both BIO and UM. They play an integral role in externally financed research projects and contracts for members of both BIO and UM, in PhD and masters education, in BIO’s study programmes across numerous courses in ecology and evolutionary biology, and for visiting researchers both nationally and internationally.
Users of these laboratories, both from BIO and from the UM, share the same general perspective that the collaboration between the UM and BIO is an important strength for Biological Sciences at the University of Bergen and should be prioritised. Any area reduction that happens now will have a long-term effect on the science we can offer at the University of Bergen in the future. Whilst we recognise the absolute economic need for area reduction, so far our main goal has been to ensure that the move will not jeopardise key functions of the laboratories, nor the collaborations between the two institutions. Speaking on behalf of BIO users of the facilities, we firmly believe it is for the good of Biology the University of Bergen as a whole that the BIO and Museum continue to collaborate effectively.
I’m pleased with the progress we have made on addressing how these existing collaborations can be maintained and developed since the area reduction process was initiated. I am thankful to the administration and the Area Reduction Team at BIO for listening to our perspectives and working together. From a practical side, we now have two working groups established with members from both BIO (spanning different faggruppe) and the UM in relation to the palaeoecological, DNA, and also biosystematics laboratories. In teaching terms, our fagruppe already acknowledge gaps in our curriculum where the expertise already exists at the museum, whilst my understanding is that many museum staff are keen to collaborate with BIO, especially in relation to masters teaching and projects. The area reduction process is therefore a good opportunity to look again at how BIO and the UM can most effectively collaborate, including both scientific research and in biology education. In 2026, BIO will develop a new departmental strategy. I am optimistic that the practical changes that will result from the area reduction process can be built into a broader strategic vision surrounding fundamental research in biodiversity, ecology and evolution at the University of Bergen.