Sammanfattning Genom kvalitativa intervjuer har sex förskolebarn medverkat i den här undersökningen, de har svarat på frågor angående djurlivet vid havsstranden. Syftet med undersökningen var att få en bild av hur och vad barn tar till sig, av utforskande aktiviteter och den ämneskunskap som gavs under en temadag på västkusten. Barnen gav många intressanta svar, och resultatet visade motsatsen av vad tidigare undersökningar visat. Inblicken av förskolebarns kunskapsslukande och inspirerande fart av att lära och ta till sig har med den här undersökningen ökat markant.

Abstract The comprehensive purpose of this essay is to get deeper insight, and more knowledge of how it is possible as an educationalist to integrate Swedish with outdoor education at a junior level. Children learn to read in different ways. In order to improve their reading and writing it is important to be open for alternative ways. In my survey I have chosen to interview three active educationalists. The method I selected was quality interviews. I have done interviews and a teaching experiment because I want to see how you can expound reading and writing Swedish and how it can be developed through outdoor education. The result of my survey shows that the interviewed teacher often uses outdoor education, and that often leads to subject integrated education, which has many positive effects for the pupils and their learning. The result of my own teaching experiment where the pupils built letters from materials in the nature also shows that you can move some parts of learning reading and writing outdoors. Keywords: Swedish subject, outdoor education, teaching experiment

Abstract The subject of this paper is children’s thoughts and feelings about the forest and on the importance of the schools for their students’ thoughts. The aim of this paper is to find out if there are any attitude differences towards the forest in schools in the city and in the countryside. To fulfil this purpose the work has been divided into two questions, 1 Do children have different thoughts about the forest, depending on where they live? 2 Does the school affect their students’ thoughts about the forest? Two schools with different locations in the country have been visited. The pupils have been interviewed and twenty interviews ten from each school have been randomly picked as material for the paper. The result from the interviews shows interesting differences and similarities between these two schools. The children in the countryside talk about the forest as a playground where they can climb threes and build cabins. When the kids in the city talk about the forest they tell you what you can find there, like leaves, animals and berries. But almost all the children feel a lot of joy for the forest and enjoy being there. Keywords: Forest, Countryside, City, Surroundings

Knowledge of ecological processes are a basis for the understanding of important environmental issues. Through qualitative interviews, 8 preschool class pupils have replied to questions concerning the concept nature, disintegration and environment. The aim of this survey was to examine what attitudes and knowledge children with different pedagogical background have about the nature and the environment. The result of this survey in whole demonstrates that all pupils have good and equivalent knowledge of the nature and the environment, independently of their different pedagogical backgrounds. A difference was however that children that have background from “I Ur och Skur” (a Swedish outdoors preschool program) know the names of all small bugs that were in the survey. Their view of what can be regained was also different. The preschool is one very important pedagogic stand when it comes to developing the children's understanding of what happens in nature. Children will interpret science concepts differently depending on their previous experiences of the surrounding world.

Landscape and vegetation data were extracted from digital maps by use of GIS. These data together with predator and management related data collected from landowners and hunter's associations in Norway, were used as explanatory parameters in an analysis of density estimates of black grouse and capercaillie in a number of study sites in Norway. By habitat modeling the dominating wood type and the landscape heterogeneity of an area were identified as important factors affecting the black grouse populations. For the capercaillie the forest cover, proportion of blueberry forest and abundance of pine marten were appointed to be important factors.

Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) is native to Europe and North America and constitutes an important nutritional resource for both humans and animals. Over the years, a series of chemical analyses have revealed several health-beneficial compounds in bilberry, and with the current demand of the berries mainly covered by Sweden and Eastern Europe, there has become an increasing desire to cultivate bilberry in Norway. In order for such cultivation to be successful an increased knowledge about bilberry is seen as essential and thus several studies have investigated the chemical composition of the berry. However, the underlying genetic diversity and the variation between populations in biochemical compounds remain to be thoroughly investigated. Therefore, the aim of present study was to investigate the differences in biochemical composition between populations of bilberry distributed on a latitudinal gradient, and estimate the level of genetic variation within and among the populations. This in order to examine whether biochemical composition was reflected by observed levels of genetic variation.Bilberries from four Norwegian populations at three regions differing in latitude were analysed for content of total phenolics (TPH), total anthocyanins (ACY) and antioxidant activity (FRAP). Furthermore, metabolic profiling was performed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to reveal biochemical differences between the populations in content of sugars, acids and some simple phenolics. Multivariate statistics were performed and revealed a clustering of samples from the two locations in Mid-Norway, and a clustering of the northern with the southern population. In addition, there were found significant differences in some of the compounds between the populations.Genetic analyses using four microsatellites were carried out to examine whether metabolic differences between populations were reflected by genetic differentiation. Despite the significant differences between populations in the concentrations of some metabolites no significant genetic differentiation was found. Thus, it seems that the variation in biochemical compounds discovered among populations could be environmentally induced differences on a similar genetic background. However, due to the limited number of working microsatellites and the fact that these molecular markers are neutral, there is still a possibility that the genetic differences causing compound concentrations to differ could be so minor as to remain undetected. Hence, further studies utilizing more microsatellite markers or new state-of-the-art molecular techniques are needed to determine whether this result holds and is valid also for genetic variation in coding parts of the genome.

In Norway today no commercial exploitation of the wild growing Norwegian bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) exists. The market in other regions of Europe, North- and South-America is based on the utilization of cultivated Vaccinium species. V.myrtillus shows generally a higher content of biochemical compounds with health-beneficial properties. As a consequence of an increasing demand for healthier food, the Nordic Bilberry project started in 2008 with the major goal to find superior clones adapted for different regions with effective production of phytochemicals. In addition, a 4-years Norwegian Bilberry project aiming at cultivation and yield potential aspects, was launched the same year (NFR project no. 184797). The presented master projected was affiliated to this project focusing on phytochemical and genetic diversity in Bymarka. It is known that life history traits of a plant species influence the clonal diversity and structure within populations. In this thesis different phytochemical methods were used for detection of total phenolics, anthocyanins and antioxidants in berry and plant material from 4 different areas in the geographic restricted area Bymarka, were a total of 80 individuals were collected. Average values detected for total phenols were 490 mg/100 g, 155 mg/ 100 g for anthocyanins and 4 mmol/ 100 g for antioxidants. The results showed little variation among clones in the restricted area. 16 primer pairs for 16 microsatellite loci were tested but only 4 (NA741, NA961, CA421 and CA483) turned out to be of good quality. These microsatellite loci were used to estimate genetic variability within and between populations. Little genetic variation was detected between the different plots, and populations had similar levels of within-population genetic variation. The highest diversity both genetic and phytochemically was found in plot D with berries without any wax layer. This plot was also more genetically different from the other populations than the berries in the same location/area/plot with a wax layer, though no significant differences was found in FST, Heterozygosity observed, Heterozygosity expected or allelic richness (P<0.05). The result from this thesis could be used further for improvement of breeding strategies and selection of cultivars with high phenolic contents for production of quality food.

African savannah elephants play a vital role in the Serengeti ecosystem with the opportunity to alter the entire ecosystem by its sheer number. Management of these animals are therefore of high importance, but little genetic research has been done thus far in the ecosystem. Their recent traumatic history of poaching serves as a template for intriguing evolutionary theories and further understanding of elephant behavior. In this study it was investigated on the genetic structure and spatial differentiation of the elephants in Serengeti using a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) marker. A widespread sample size of 55 elephants were collected in three zones of the Serengeti National Park (West, North and Seronera) and analyzed for genetic diversity. The results gave the impression of a slightly outbreeding population with no ongoing subdivision (FST = -0.04864, p = 0.92082). A total of 7 haplotypes were obtained with one clearly being dominant (78.2 %). All collected haplotypes were compared to earlier studies using the same mitochondrial marker and having a wider perspective, with samples ranging across the sub-Saharan Africa. Results show that there is a possibility that the elephants now inhabiting the Serengeti are primary descendants of Northern populations coming from Kenya and Uganda, with additional individuals giving the impression that the Serengeti elephants are a mixture of individuals with historical connections from all over sub-Saharan Africa.

AbstractHuman-carnivore conflict is currently one of the main constraints to biodiversity conservation efforts outside many protected areas worldwide. A survey of livestock depredation caused by wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) and other wild carnivore species in the Maasai and Sonjo areas outside Serengeti National Park, Tanzania over two periods between 2007/09 and 2010 using different methodologies indicated a high level of conflict. The conflict related to African wild dogs proved the most significant conflict during both periods compared with that related to other carnivores. Wild dogs were found to cause more attacks in the Maasai area (n = 229, n = 18) than in the Sonjo area (n = 111, n = 9) over both observation periods. However, the difference in attack rates was attributed to a difference in the size of the livestock populations, as there were approximately 318,209 animals belonging to the Maasai tribe, while the Sonjo tribe had only 78,191 livestock. Therefore, wild dogs were found to exert a statistically significantly higher depredation rate (1.42 animals per 1000 per year) related to the Sonjo tribe compared with the Maasai tribe (0.72 animals per 1000 per year), as estimated only during the first period.African wild dogs were found to be the most common predator in both areas for both periods. However, in the second period, leopards (Panthera pardus) and spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta) were also found to be quite common predators in both areas. Shoats (sheep & goats) were depredated more frequently than cattle/donkeys by wild dogs and other carnivores in the area. Livestock depredation was found to occur most frequently during evening. While shoats were found to be most frequently attacked during the wet season, cattle/donkeys were most frequently attacked during the dry season. The results of this study recommend that traditional livestock husbandry techniques should be improved, as should the use of non-lethal control measures. Prevention and control measures for diseases that can affect both livestock and wildlife should be instituted in the area to enhance the survival rate of young animals. If possible, herders should bring their livestock back to boma before 16:00 hrs in the evening. Shoats should be more attentively looked after during the wet season. Furthermore, eco-tourism activities should be encouraged in the area. To achieve these aims, the reinforcement of wild dogs’ conservation awareness programmes in the area is a possible way forward.

Serengeti ecosystem supports great number of large mammals ranging from grazers, browsers and carnivores. Some of these animals migrate between seasonal water sources and grasslands. The human population in the western boundary of the park is currently high and increases at the rate of 4% per annum. Majority of local communities are subsistence farmers who derive their needs such as bush meat from the park. The purpose of the study was to test if bush meat utilization contributes to nutritional improvement of local communities around Serengeti National Park. Three villages were selected at random along a gradient of distance from Serengeti National Park and Lake Victoria and a control village from Dodoma Region in Tanzania. One hundred households were selected at random from each village and interviewed. Weight and height of children aged 3 to 12 years from the selected households were measured. Anthropometric data were analyzed by WHO AntrhoPlus software while questionnaires were analyzed by SPSS for windows version 18. The results revealed significant differences in the number of undernourished children from the villages which were in western Serengeti compared to the control village. Consumption of bushmeat was significantly higher in the villages which were close to the park compared to the village which was further away from the park. Fish consumption was higher than bushmeat in the village which was close to both park and Lake Victoria and negatively correlated with bushmeat meals, while consumption of livestock meat was higher in the control village. No significant relationship between nutritional status of children and number of bushmeat meals observed, but there was a negative relationship between nutritional status and distance from the park/lake and the price of bushmeat. The study also revealed significant relationship between level of education of the parent and the body mass index of the children.