Erlend Ignacio Fleck Fossen

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at CICERO Centre for International Climate Research

Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) are aggressive and heterogenous tumors with a high fatality rate. Many gene signatures (GS) have been developed with both prognostic and predictive significance. We aimed to externally validate five published GS in a large European collection of HNSCC patients. Gene expression from 1097 treatment-naïve...

Evolution in fluctuating environments is predicted to select for phenotypic plasticity or bet-hedging, depending on the accuracy of environmental cues and type of fluctuations. While these two alternatives are often contrasted in theoretical studies, their evolution are seldom studied together in empirical work. We used experimental evolution in th...

Metabolic rate (MR) often scales with body mass (BM) following a power function of the form MR=aBM b , where log(a) is the allometric intercept and b is the allometric exponent (i.e. slope on a log-log scale). The variational properties of b have been debated, but very few studies have tested for genetic variance in b, and none have tested for a g...

The chiefly Holarctic Hydrobius species complex (Coleoptera, Hydrophilidae) currently consists of H. arcticus Kuwert, 1890, and three morphological variants of H. fuscipes (Linnaeus, 1758): var. fuscipes, var. rottenbergii and var. subrotundus in northern Europe. Here molecular and morphological data are used to test the species boundaries in this...

Background Conditional outcomes are outcomes defined only under specific circumstances. For example, future quality of life can only be ascertained when subjects are alive. In prognostic models involving conditional outcomes, a choice must be made on the precise target of prediction: one could target future quality of life, given that the individua...

Background: The Big Data for Quality of Life (BD4QoL) study investigates quality of life (QoL) in head and neck cancer (HNC) survivors, focusing on survivorship and characterizing survivor demographics. Methods: We screened data from 5 studies across Europe (N=7276) and included patients with a diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma (oral cavity, hyp...

Patients surviving head and neck cancer (HNC) suffer from high physical, psychological, and socioeconomic burdens. Achieving cancer-free survival with an optimal quality of life (QoL) is the primary goal for HNC patient management. So, maintaining lifelong surveillance is critical. An ambitious goal would be to carry this out through the advanced a...

When comparing somatic growth thermal performance curves (TPCs), higher somatic growth across experimental temperatures is often observed for populations originating from colder environments. Such countergradient variation has been suggested to represent adaptation to seasonality, or shorter favourable seasons in colder climates. Alternatively, pop...

Global warming challenges the persistence of local populations, not only through heat‐induced stress, but also through indirect biotic changes. We study the interactive effects of temperature, competition and parasitism in the water flea Daphnia magna. We carried out a common garden experiment monitoring the dynamics of Daphnia populations along a...

• An optimal timing for diapause induction through the sexual production of dormant propagules is expected in organisms with temporary populations. Yet, empirical studies often find high within-population genetic variation in the sexual production of such propagules, suggesting that this is a common feature of such organisms. • Here, we hypothesize...

An optimal timing for diapause induction through the sexual production of dormant propagules is expected in populations of annual organisms. Yet, experimental work typically finds high within-population genetic variation in the sexual production of such propagules. Thus, high genetic variation in timing for diapause induction should be a common fea...

Much is known about the genetic variance in certain components of metabolism, most notably resting and maximum metabolic rate. This is in stark contrast to the lack of information on genetic variance in the metabolic rate of individuals that feed and express routine activity, and how this rate correlates with other components of the energy budget o...

Theoretical models on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity predict a zone of canalization where reaction norms cross and genetic variation is minimized in the environment a population most frequently encounter. Empirical tests of this prediction are largely missing, in particular for life‐history traits. We addressed this prediction by quantifyin...

Population density has recently been suggested to be an important factor influencing metabolic rates and to represent an important ‘third axis’ explaining variation beyond that explained by body mass and temperature. In situations where population density influences food consumption, the immediate effect on metabolism acting through specific dynami...

Additional morphological characters

Supplementary tables and figures

Specimen information

Morphological dataset