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Transect My Friend

Post day, time to take stock of the situation for our experiences and maybe time to stay zen: after analysis of chlorophyll and particle counting, there is almost none phytoplankton and with natural seawater our aquariums would barely have inhabitants...hard to follow any change of a community without a community! Phytoplankton being crucial for the project, we decided to collect new samples with a drifting net attached to a boat to concentrate a much bigger amount of cells. That way we have enough cells to observe some and to start working with them... Let’s go to the field again!



The net was dragged behind the boat for 5 minutes to make a transect. 3 transects are made for each of the 4 stations thanks to our amazing (and patient) driver, Gregory! As shown on the map below, 2 stations (A & C) are located in almost enclosed area of the bay. Stations B & D are located in a channel where the current is stronger because of the influence of the sea.



All the samples are filtered to remove the zooplankton, the microscopic grazers that love phytoplankton algae (we don’t want them to eat all the leading roles of our experiment!). Each sample is used for:
chlorophyll a analysis, a universal pigment present in all phytoplankton cells (actually also plant cells)
cell counts (or hours and hours looking at funny organisms under a microscope!)
determination of particle size
starting our experiment with samples from station A! Eventually!



A team-made ARDUINO temperature control system, built by our amazing engineer, Lea and Loïc, is placed in the tanks in order to reach the different temperature treatments (22°C, 25°C and 27°C). Our system is completed with a brand-new oxygen/bubbler installation made up of several pieces of tubing and different connectors (more or less old), completed with a few clothes pins...

To finish, have a first look on our magnificent phytoplankton cells ! More coming soon…



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