Sorting the Crustacean samples from our
Marine Invertebrates of Western Africa Project (MIWA)
Most work is more fun when working together. It also makes for better science to cooperate – and the easiest way to cooperate on taxonomy is to sit at the same lab for some time – to be able to look at the same specimens and see the same details that should be examined. This is the plan for the amphipods from the MIWA-project. Ania Jażdżewska from the University of Łódź in Poland is visiting our lab for an extended week of collaboration with me in a mini-workshop on the amphipod samples.
But before a visitor can come, preparations are necessary. So for the last 6 weeks I have been sorting all the ethanol-samples of our west-african crustaceans into separate orders (isopods, tanaidaceans, cumaceans, decapoda), and the amphipods (also an order) have been sorted to family.
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- Ground zero: a jar of unsorted sample.
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- Biodiversity in a dish! (photo: K. Kongshavn)
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- Zooming in… there are many, many animals in this particular sample! (photo: K. Kongshavn)
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- Spot the amphipods? (photo: K. Kongshavn)
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- The samples are first sorted into the main groups (usually Crustacea, Polychaeta, Mollusca, Echinodermata and the multi-purpose category “Varia”) (photo: K. Kongshavn)
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- The jars marked Crustacea are then turned over to the people who work on the various crustacean groups (Photo:A.H. Tandberg)
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- From subphylum (Crustacea) to families and beyond (Photo:A.H. Tandberg)
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- They then sort it further… (Photo:A.H. Tandberg)
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- Here are the groups Anne Helene uses when sorting (Photo:A.H. Tandberg)
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- Eventually we have a pile of vials sorted to family (or order, or species…) level (Photo:A.H. Tandberg)
98 samples have been split into 629 smaller vials – ready to be further examined when Ania comes.
We promise a follow-up on what this brings of fun science!
-Anne Helene