Tjärnö’s next top models

We hope that we can show that barnacles and mussels can serve as model organisms for temperature changes. We think that if they show a significant reaction towards the elevated temperature they probably can be used to predict some impacts of climate change in further studies. That’s why we try to keep our data assessment as reliable and comprehensively as possible.
The best way to do so is capture the reactions on camera. This will give us the advantage of having a second, third,…look if anything is unclear. For the muscles we set up cameras which will take a picture in time intervals of 5 minutes. Later on the computer we can then measure changes in the opening of the valves. The barnacle colonies are captured on video. It enables us to focus on one barnacle at a time and count the extraction of their feeding organs called cirri. Did you know that barnacles are actually crustaceans with an extremely modified body and shell? They change towards the sessile lifestyle after their larval stage and the feathery cirri are actually the crustacean feet.

All in all we are very happy on how the first feeding went. At the moment we are evaluating the preliminary results and are preparing for the second round. Things certainly remain exciting.

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IMBRSea Summer School embarks in Tjärnö

The International Master of Science in Marine Biological Resources (IMBRSea - www.imbrsea.eu ), this year organizes the first summer schools at the Tjärnö Marine Laboratory in Sweden. From 1 till 11 August 39 students and 10 teachers are working on seven challenging research projects. Follow the adventures of the seven research teams in the coming weeks via this blog!

Sampling Tjärnö Bay

Professor Karim and Lucy after our last deployment, hurray!! Our experiments are finally finished! We were able to deploy BRUV (see our Finding Fish in Tjärnö Bay post for a description :) ) at all of our sampling locations, plus a few bonus ones. We sampled three different habitat types: sandy, muddy/algae, and harbour areas. Map of Tjärnö Bay with our sampling locations At all of our habitats we sampled at a depth of approximately 1.5 meters to assess what animals are typically found in the littoral zone of Tjärnö Bay - the littoral zone is the region of the sea closest to the shoreline. On our final day of sampling we decided to do a few extra deployments at 10 meters to search for species we didn’t find at shallower depths. We’re working on analyzing all our video footage now - stay tuned for an upcoming creature feature post! Justin and Catie setting up the cameras for deployment Since BRUV uses bait to attract fish, we also conducted snorkeling transects at all of ou...

Goodbye my BRUVver, Goodbye my friend

Just a few hours are left of the summer school, the report is done, presentation complete, video shown (to mixed reviews…philistines). We’ve had an incredible time here in Sweden and have learned a lot, about fish, BRUV devices, and ourselves… One of the many beautiful sunsets of Tjärnö Surprisingly our experiments worked out well, we discovered that the most complex habitats did indeed have the most fish. They like structures and hiding places, but not as much as they like mussels…which is why we managed to actually see them on the video! We watched many clips like this screenshot to count so many fish Thank you for keeping up with Team eFISHency over the past 10 days! We’ve enjoyed every moment (well mostly…), and are really happy with our work! xoxo Gossip Pearl

IMBRSea Joint School - Adventures at the Swedish Coast

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