Hi all,
Today is our last day of sampling. We started bright and early again at 6am. It rained a bit, but it was accompanied by a full rainbow arching over the boat. Nice way to start off the morning!
You guys are probably wondering how we collect all of the larval fish I showed you on the last blog post. Well, we deploy a bongo net off the back of the boat and a neuston net off the side. Both nets are brought on board and the samples are washed down into the codends. The contents of the codends are rinsed/poured and put into our sample jars. The samples are brought into the wet lab for a closer look and a potential photo. Some of the larger specimens (e.g., tunas, swordfish) are frozen for genetic analyses.
I set up a GoPro around the boat to show you guys how we sample at each station. Let’s take a look of some of our scientists at work:
Bongo nets and the sunset last night. Neuston net.
Rich is collecting water for the YSI and for the food web study. Nina is reading the water's temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen.
Rich, Nina, Jillian, and Jason are retrieving the bongo nets. Everyone's rinsing down the nets, while Michelle is recording the
flowmeter data.
Jillian is pouring her plankton sample out of the codend. Jason and Nina are rinsing the bongo nets.
Nina and Jessica are putting the sample into the jar. Jessica is looking at a larval tuna under the microscope/taking a picture.
Alex and Cori just retrieved the neuston net. Jillian, Alex, Cori, and Travis are sorting the neuston net sample.
Jason and Travis sorting through Sargassum. Jason and Alex looking at our catch!
Dr. Michelle Sluis is the PI on the cruise. She is recording the data for each tow (e.g., start time, location, etc.) in the pictures above.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures!
-Nina