RESEARCH AT THE INVERTEBRATE DEPARTMENT, 1993-1997
(published research is marked with an asterisk, see list of publications)
The staff, students and guests at the Invertebrate Department study invertebrates apart from terrestrial arthropods. Several curators and emeriti are among the internationally leadingspecialists in their fields and collaborate with colleagues at museums and marine laboratories all over the world. Some curators and students devote part of their time to studies of the part of the Danish fauna still presenting systematic and faunisticproblems, for example, immigrant species. One well-reputed outcome of these studies is volumes of the series of identification handbooks "Danmarks Fauna". Most of the research at the department lies within the following areas:
Phylogeny at the level of phyla. The efforts are concentrated in two areas, aschelminths and the Animal Kingdom as a whole. Work on the first-mentioned subject is closely associated with meiofaunal studies. Work with the phylogeny of the animal kingdom has resulted in a phylogenetic tree with 31 accepted phyla; many of the new, crucial characters come from studies of structure and function of ciliary bands of planktonic larvae.
Meiofauna investigations. The discovery of species representing new orders, classes and even a new phylum adds fresh perspectives to the understanding of the evolution of the Animal Kingdom. One of the curators is prominent in this research with studies in many parts of the world.
Polar zoology. The Museum has a 200-year-old unbroken tradition for systematic and biological investigations of the fauna of Greenland. Recent research has concentrated on meiofauna. One project deals with faunal changes in the Arctic, especially among molluscs, in connection with the climatic changes from early Tertiary (subtropical) to Present (arctic). Several staff members have taken part in international expeditions to Greenland and the Weddell Sea (Antarctica).
The North Atlantic fauna. Since 1987 many of the Department's members have participated in the Internordic BIOFAR project (Investigations of the benthic fauna around the Faroes) which deals with benthos down to 1000 m depth around the Faroes, and from 1991 also in the BIOICE project (Investigations of the benthic fauna around Iceland) which investigates the fauna around Iceland. Faunistic work based on the collections from these projects is currently being published.
The Indo-Pacific fauna. The Department has considerable collections originating from Dr. Th. Mortensen's travels in the 1910s and 1920s, the "Dana" Expedition 1928-30 and the "Galathea" Expedition 1950-52. In recent years investigations have been carried out in Tanzania, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and parts of tropical Australia.
Deep-sea biology. Two emeriti who took part in the "Galathea" expedition, as well as a few other scientists make intermittent contributions on the basis of material from this and later, foreign expeditions. Because of their expertise, the Museum's deep-sea biologists are welcome on foreign research vessels.
The Department's staff, associates and students published a total of 186 papers during 1993-1997.
Research projects at the Invertebrate Department 1993-1997:
Systematics and faunistics of sponges
Systematics, biogeography, palaeontology and biology of molluscs
Systematics, phylogeny and anatomy of annelids
Systematics, palaeontology and ultrastructure of tardigrades
Systematics, phylogeny and faunistics of crustaceans
Systematics and ultrastructure of entoprocts
Systematics and faunistics of bryozoans
Systematics and ultrastructure of aschelminths
Anatomy and classification of sea-urchins
High-level phylogeny and evolution
The North Atlantic and Arctic Fauna