First Trawl of DSB2

Hi everyone!

This is Bianca, coming to you live from the R/V Point Sur!

Yesterday, our sampling crew had an early morning start for our first trawl of the cruise! We all met up around 2:00 AM, getting ready for when the net hit the surface. Our team brings together a wide diversity of expertise, from taxonomists to acoustic specialists, as well as Master’s and Ph.D. students.

Image: Dr. Tracey Sutton (left) and Dr. Heather Bracken-Grissom (right) standing over a sample tray, collecting fauna of their expertise for identification.

The MOC10 is a series of six nets that can collect samples at targeted depth zones that we set in the water column down to 1500 m.  For this project, we are investigating taxa that are found closer to the continental slope so we are most likely going to stay above 1000 m for this cruise.

Once the nets reach the surface, our MOC10 team heads out to collect samples from each of the nets. We conduct two trawls per day, one at night and one during daylight. The night trawls are especially interesting because we get to see many species that migrate upward towards the surface at night.

On my end of the sampling process, I work with Jane (a post doc from URI) and Natalie (a Ph.D. student from FAU) to collect all our fish data and prepare specimens to be shipped out to collaborators. Processing these samples requires a lot of communication and teamwork, and I feel very lucky to be part of such a great team!

Image: Our research technician Sidney (left), and students Ian (middle) and Natalie (right) working over a processing tray.

This cruise off to a fantastic start! We’ve already completed and processed three trawls in the first two sampling days. I can’t wait to see what other animals we will encounter over the next two weeks.

See you on the flip side!

-Bianca