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 our sampling locations to look for fish that might not be attracted to bait. Snorkeling transects consist of a team member swimming along a 20 meter line with a camera recording any fish that appear in the field of vision. Here are a few things we discovered during our transects:
1. The water in Tjärnö Bay is cold. Very cold.
2. It is very important to have the camera on during the transect.
3. Once you put a wetsuit on, the water is still very cold.
4. Swimming in a straight line is difficult, especially when navigating through a swarm of jellyfish.
5. Did we mention the water is cold?

Catie and Nils getting ready for snorkeling transects with Professor Karim - note these smiles occured BEFORE jumping into cold, jelly-infested waters

Now that our experiments are finished, all that’s left to do is analyze our data, write our report, shoot our video, and finalize our presentation...wish us luck! Xoxo, gossip pearl

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