Next generation of taxonomy – assessment of biodiversity at beaches in the Oslofjord
The rapid and correct assessment of biodiversity is mandatory for many ecological studies. Determining, for example, the response of an ecosystem to human impact and climate change is becoming more important than ever. However, there baseline studies are necessary allowing the assessment of future changes. Moreover, taxonomic expertise is dwindling. To circumvent the problem of the lack of expertise it has been suggested that molecular data, as so called barcodes, is determined for each species. Such strategies may be very useful for the assessment of biodiversity, but first require building a reference library by trained taxonomic experts. Therefore, the aim of this master project is to accomplish both generation of new taxonomic expertise in a broad range of animal taxa as well as build up the needed reference library for species from a very peculiar habitat, the space between the sand grains.
