History
The main objectives and activities during the first years were to increase the output from commercial fisheries in the region by carrying out practical fisheries research and by producing plaice larvae for wild stock enhancement programs. In the most productive years, about 130 million plaice yolk-sack larvae were released annually in the Trondheimsfjord and nearby coastal areas. During several decades, rather extensive research was conducted to develop methods to measure the effect of such reinforcements on the wild stocks, including the use of genetic markers (triploids, species hybrids plaice/flounder, and full-sib groups with specific skin coloration) as well as external markers (tags, tattooing, skin branding). However, in accordance with a general international trend, this activity at TBS ceased in the 1960'ies due to a lack of hard evidence for a positive effect of the efforts. From 1970 and on, more weight was placed on basic marine science. With the establishment of new buildings and laboratories in the mid eighties, laboratory experiments and the utilisation of new methodology and instrumentation have characterised the activity in photobiology, physiology, taxonomy/systematics, fish biology and population genetics. Simultaneously with this switch to a more basic research, the geographic areas for investigations have been expanded so that today, several of TBS' sampling programs and research focuses are global.
Trondhjem Biological Station was a pioneering institution in the early efforts to bring marine fish into culture in the first part of the last century. Gunnar Rollefsen at TBS was the first to apply Artemia as a live feed for marine fish larvae, he used it for plaice larvae. Today this is recognized as the first step towards the hatchery methods that are used world wide for most marine species.
Organisation
In 1951, after being a government-funded foundation for 50 years, TBS became a department of the "Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, The Museum". In 1984 The Museum, together with the Norwegian Technical Highschool (NTH) and the State Teachers Highschool (AVH), formed The University of Trondheim (UNIT). UNIT was reorganised in 1996 and changed name to The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) . In this reorganisation, TBS together with the former Botanical and Zoological Departments at the Museum of Natural History and Archaeology formed the Institute of Natural History . In 2003, TBS was organisatorically transferred from the Museum to the Institute of Biology at NTNU. TBS is currently (2004) a section of this institute. NTNU has recently decided to add a new laboratory/office building at the TBS facilities in order to accommodate also the aquaculture group of the Institute of Biology .
