Bryozoans from the 50s

During the past year, I (Mali) have gone through a relatively large amount of unidentified bryozoan material that was collected in the 1950s. There are two different collection "projects": One with a focus on the Oslofjord (the Drøbak collections, image 1A) and the other along the coast of Southern Norway (the Dannevig collections, image 1B).

The Drøbak collection was managed from the marine biological station in Drøbak and led by Bjørn Føyn. The collection itself was carried out by Marit E. Christiansen and Bengt O. Christiansen and lasted from 1951-1955. Over 600 samples were collected during the period and stored at the Natural History Museum in Oslo.

As for the Dannevig collections, the Natural History Museum was responsible for organizing the sampling, and the project was led by curator Nils Knaben. The collections themselves were carried out by Knaben, together with his assistant Kari Krog and biology students. A total of 280 samples were collected here, and these were also stored at the NHM.

Both collection projects resulted in samples that contained many different animal groups such as echinoderms, bryozoans, molluscs, crustaceans, and annelids. Several papers have been published on both the Drøbak and Dannevig material and who knows, maybe we will get to write an article for bryozoans too?

Reference:
Oug, E., Christiansen, M. E., Dobbe, K., Rønning, A.-H., Bakken, T., & Kongsrud, J. A. (2015). Mapping of marine benthic invertebrates in the Oslofjord and the Skagerrak: sampling data of museum collections from 1950-1955 and from recent investigations. Fauna Norvegica, 35, 35-45. https://doi.org/10.5324/fn.v35i0.1944