Author Archives: katrine

The Cnidaria+Ctenophora Research group at the PRIMALearning Jellyfish Workshop in South Africa

On the 12th of February at the crack of dawn, we had the amazing opportunity to go to Cape Town to attend a Jellyfish workshop. The “we” in question are the three authors of this blog post: Vincent, Vetle, and Håvard. We are master students all working with jellyfish-related topics, and some would go as far as to call us jellyfish enthusiasts. Our work is part of the museum’s Artsprosjekter NorHydro and ParaZoo, and we were happy to represent the invertebrate collections and UMB at this event.

The workshop, held at the Iziko South African Museum, was organized by PRIMALearning and was a collaborative initiative between the University of Bergen and the University of Western Cape. This gave the three of us, accompanied by a few other UiB students not affiliated with the University Museum of Bergen, the chance to visit Cape Town. Some of us for the first time.

On the first day of the workshop, we were greeted outside the museum by Mark Gibbons and his PhD student Michael Brown who was the representative from UWC and would be teaching parts of the workshop. With them was also Anne Gro Vea Salvanes as the representative for PRIMALearning and the University of Bergen, she was also joined by our own UMB scientists Aino Hosia and Luis Martell, who were also part of the teaching team.

The first day included introductions from all the participants, and we got to know each other bit better. We also got a brief introduction to the world of jellyfish and their taxonomy before the night ended with a delicious dinner together with all the participants.

The second day started with lectures about the large or ‘true’ jellies (Scyphozoa), before we got to get our hands dirty looking at preserved samples of jellyfish. We were met with a broad diversity of scyphozoans that was passed around between the students so we would get a shot at identifying them.

We examined fixed material of scyphozoan jellies representative of the three major groups within the class:

 

The rest of the day after the workshop was spent at the beach, enjoying the sun and local wine. Cape Town is called the windy city, and it did deliver on its name, but nothing could stop the sun-deprived Norwegian students from going outside to soak up some rays.

The third day was Hydrozoa day 1, a topic dear to our hearts and it was taught by our own MSc supervisor Luis Martell. Some of us were a bit tired this day because we decided to climb Lion’s head mountain before the workshop started to see the sunrise.

But this did not stop us from eagerly working with the preserved hydrozoan samples we got to look at. We identified all hydromedusae and siphonophores with the help of a stereomicroscope:

 A dissected carybdeid cubozoan jellyfish. IC: Håvard Vrålstad

 

Day four was box jellies (Cubozoa) day, a class neither of us was very familiar with. So we were excited to learn about these unknown and sometimes dangerous animals.

Luckily the animals were less deadly when preserved and we could therefore touch them while identifying them.

 

 

 

This day ended early so we took the opportunity to get down to Simon’s Town were we spent the rest of the day looking at the local penguins and wildlife at the beach.

A snapshot of the fauna we observed at Simon’s Town. IC: Vincent McDaniel

On our last day, we were introduced to the alien world of siphonophores by our own Aino Hosia. These animals are close to Håvards heart (if you ask him on a good day).

They were a nice ending to an awesome workshop, and we can honestly say now that our interest for jellyfish has grown, and we look forward to seeing even more of them in the future.

On February 19th the vacation/business trip was unfortunately over for Vetle and Vincent and they had to pack their bags and prepare to leave Cape Town and head home to Bergen, while the “slightly” more fortunate Håvard stayed behind in the windy city to enjoy a few more days of leisure.

Participants and teachers at the jellyfish workshop. IC: Anne Gro Vea Salvanes

We want to thank PRIMALearning for arranging the workshop, the University of the Western Cape for hosting and providing us with samples to work with, the Iziko Museum of South Africa for the location as well as providing refreshments, and to the University of Bergen for arranging accommodations. Also, a very special thanks to all the lecturers who presented and were very patient with us during the lab work.

-Vetle, Vincent, and Håvard

Are you interested in becoming a master student in marine biology at the University Museum of Bergen? Information about available projects can be found here (more will be added soon!):

Marine Masters at the University Museum of Bergen
– available thesis topics in marine biodiversity

Project ParaZoo: there is a critter inside my jellyfish!

ParaZoo (complete name ‘Metazoan parasites of non-crustacean zooplankton’) is one of the most interaction-focused projects currently running at the Invertebrate Collections of our Museum. This project, funded by the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre (Artsdatabanken), aims at studying the different animals that live together inside and on the surface of Norwegian jellyfish. This means that for the next two years we will be looking for tapeworms, flukes, roundworms, and amphipods as ParaZoo tries to answer the question of which of these organisms are associated with gelatinous hosts in Norwegian waters.

ParaZoo is focused on animal parasites and symbionts associated with jellyfish. Thse parasites include roundworms like Hysterothylacium aduncum (left, in Euphysa aurata), amphipods like Hyperia medusarum (middle, on Aequorera forskalea), and flukes like the members of family Didymozooidae (right, in Beroe gracilis). IC: Aino Hosia (left), Katrine Kongshavn (middle), Joan J. Soto-Àngel (right).

Besides jellyfish, arrow worms (Chaetognatha) are also members of non-crustacean zooplankton that host different types of parasites, like this H. aduncum roundworm (Nematoda). IC: Joan J. Soto-Àngel, Luis Martell.

Parasitism and symbiosis are extremely common life styles in the animal kingdom. In fact, some researchers believe that there may be more species of parasites than of free-living animals, given that each free-living species hosts many species of parasites (most of them unique) and those parasites also host their own parasitic tenants. Marine zooplankton is no exception to this trend, and many parasites and symbionts are expected to occur in copepods, krill, and gelatinous zooplankton. Jellyfish and arrow worms, for example, may be important hosts for flatworms and other helminths, yet our knowledge of these animals in Norway is very scarce.

ParaZoo’s logo includes two of the target taxa of the project: roundworms (Nematoda) and hyperiids (Amphipoda). The third main parasitic group covered is flatworms (Platyhelminthes), illustrated by the larvae of Derogenes varicus parasitizing Halopsis ocellata shown in the right side of this figure. IC: Joan J. Soto-Àngel, Luis Martell.

Understanding zooplankton parasites is important because many of them are going to be transmitted to fish, where they may cause serious diseases. To get a better overview of which critters live in non-crustacean zooplankton, ParaZoo will sample, record, and DNA-barcode specimens from all over the country. The collected animals will be included in our museum collections after being identified, documented photographically, and fixed in ethanol. We will then generate an open-access database of information including pictures and DNA sequences that will help with the identification of the parasites. Aquaculture facilities, fishermen, and managers of marine areas will benefit from this database to better plan and counter potential negative impacts caused by the parasites.

Flukes, such as Opechona spp, parasitize gelatinous zooplankton (in this case a sea-gooseberry Pleurobrachia pileus) as larvae called metacercariae. IC: Joan J. Soto-Àngel, Luis Martell.

The larvae of tapeworms (Cestoda) sometimes use jellyfish to reach their definitive hosts: fish. IC: Joan J. Soto-Àngel, Luis Martell.

ParaZoo is committed to present the diversity of jellyfish parasites to all those not familiar with them. In order to do that, we will regularly write entries here on the blog, as well as participate in several academic and not-academic meetings. The official info webpage for the project is available here, so don’t forget to check it out!

–Luis

A new online resource for identifying ‘fur snail’ hydroids, and a farewell to project NorHydro

Finding the correct name of the hydroids growing on shells of snails and hermit crabs can be notoriously difficult… but fear not! A new online resource is now available and we hope it will help everybody who is interested in these little critters.

Fig1. Have you seen these pink/orange ‘blobs’ growing on washed-up algae along the coast? They are hydroids of the species Clava multicornis. Read more about this and other Norwegian hydractiniids in the new arter på nett webpages. IC: Luis Martell (left), Katrine Kongshavn (right).

We (the UMB research team of NorHydro: Luis, Aino, Joan, and Lara) have created a series of species identification sheets for all the hydroids and jellyfish belonging to family Hydractiniidae. This family includes some hydroids that can be easily encountered during a walk along the coast or when snorkeling and scuba diving in Norway, and therefore we wanted to provide beach-goers and divers with a tool to find the correct name of these animals.

Fig2. The new identification sheets for Hydractiniidae are available inside the section I havet of the Arter på nett platform in Artsdatabanken’s website. IC: Artsdatabanken.

Many hydractiniids are known as ‘snail fur’ because they give a furry appearance to the shells they are growing on, while others grow on rocks or on algae. Identifying the species still requires a little effort, but altogether they are one of the best groups to start with for anyone interested in hydrozoan diversity in Norway. This is what motivated Lara, a MSc student at the time, to created the first version of these sheets (together with some beautiful illustrations) which were then developed further with text from everybody in the team.
The editors and consultants at Artsdatabanken helped us throughout the process, and we are happy to present the final version of this online resource available here:
Arter på nett: Hydractiniidae

Fig3. The anatomy of a polyp colony of Hydractiniidae is best explained with a combination of images at high-magnification and detailed diagrams. IC: Luis Martell (left), Lara Beckmann (right).

Fig4. Hydractiniid hydromedusae are smaller than 1 cm, but they still have several characters that we use for identification. IC: Joan J. Soto-Angel (left), Lara Beckmann (right).

Fig5. Both the hydromedusa and the hydroid stages of the three species of Podocoryna occurring in Norway are included in the new Hydractiniidae arter på nett. IC: Joan J. Soto-Angel, Bernard Picton, Lara Beckmann

The publication of the Hydractiniidae identification sheets marks the end of our project NorHydro. The project’s main objective was to map the diversity of hydrozoans in Norway, but we also tried to present marine hydroids to all those not familiar with these amazing creatures. During its 3 year’s run, NorHydro produced a detailed inventory of Norwegian hydrozoans through an integrative (morphology + DNA) approach: we collected samples in >90 sites around the country and analyzed existing museum specimens to produce >1200 new records and high-quality, open access DNA barcodes for 160 species. NorHydro’s scientific team identified 12 cases of species complexes, supervised 5 MSc thesis, and participated in >20 outreach activities and presentations in academic events. All in all, NorHydro was an extremely enriching experience and I’m confident its results will help us understand a little better the diversity of marine invertebrates in Norway.

Fig6. Farewell NorHydro!

-Luis

Student visit – Ana González

MSc student Ana González visited the collections last month as part of project NorHydro, where she spent some weeks in the lab working with her samples. Here is an account of her experience:

The challenge of identifying benthic hydrozoans
Hydrozoa is a fascinating but poorly understood group of invertebrates, in part because their identification is not always an easy task. I have been studying benthic hydrozoan communities for over a year now, in particular those living in the shallow waters of Mallorca (Spain), and I have realized that the diversity of forms and structures in the group is higher than I had imagined at the beginning of my studies, and their identification is more difficult than I expected. The assemblages of hydrozoans in the Mediterranean are of course very different from the ones that occur in Norway, but something that both communities have in common is that morphological identification of the animals (i.e. telling which species is present based only on the characteristics we can observe) is challenging, which is why one of the aims of my visit to the University Museum of Bergen last December was to learn a different technique (DNA barcoding) that can help me improve the identification of my samples in cases when the morphology of the specimens is not good enough.

Some of the morphological characters that are used to identify benthic hydrozoans. On the left side a member of Campanulariidae, with a stolonal colony, and on the right side Monotheca obliqua with an erect colony.

DNA barcoding consists in finding a short DNA sequence (the barcode) that is similar for all members of one species but different from all other species. It is a relatively recent tool that –among other things– has helped the scientific community identify specimens that for one reason or the other cannot be identified based on how they look. In some groups, such as many colonial invertebrates, this technique has become a key asset because the colonies are often too young or not reproductive, or the important characters for identifications may be found only in one stage of the life cycle and not in others. For this visit I had the chance to bring all my samples from Mallorca to Bergen and I set to extracting the DNA of selected specimens, amplifying two different barcode genes (COI and 16S), and obtaining clean sequences for them. I discovered that, when it comes to DNA barcoding, every step of the process is important, and being patient and careful is essential.

Me at the DNA lab, running the electrophoresis for my samples.

Getting good results in the DNA lab depends on several factors like not forgetting any step and avoiding contamination as far as possible, but the work does not end there: once you have your sequences they have to be cleaned, quality-checked, and finally compared with others. This means that having a complete and trustworthy database of DNA barcodes is necessary, especially if you want to use the sequence to help you corroborate the identification of a specimen. When done right and with a good database, the DNA barcodes can be useful to detect differences between hydrozoan assemblages growing in different parts of the world or between different substrates and levels of anthropogenic impact, which is what I am doing in my MSc project.

Left: Clytia sp growing on the marine plant Posidonia oceanica. Center: A polyp of Halecium sp, one of the most difficult genera of Hydrozoa to identify based only in morphology, especially when the colony is not reproductive. Right: Eudendrium sp., found in harbours in Mallorca in high abundances.

The analysis of DNA sequences is a powerful tool to compare specimens of distinct populations and in some cases animals that apparently belong to the same species turn out to be completely different (e.g. cryptic species). This is not uncommon for benthic hydrozoans, which have high morphological diversity but also high levels of plasticity, resulting in colonies from different species sometimes being very similar to each other when they grow in similar substrates. As useful as DNA analyses are, however, it is also important to consider their limitations. For example, while the abundance of each species in a given community is important to describe the ecological status of a habitat, estimating abundance is still not always possible from sequence reads in DNA analyses.

Many cryptic species have been discovered in Aglaopheniidae thanks to the combination of DNA barcoding and morphological analysis

The use of DNA barcodes in my work is not limited to my current project, as I hope my identifications and sequences will help a little bit to improve the databases for future studies of hydrozoan communities in the Mediterranean Sea, and maybe even allow other researchers to compare their samples with the species found on other parts of the world. I think that looking closely at each specimen is the best way to truly know variation, so both morphology observations and DNA analyses should be combined to obtain good estimates of the diversity of a taxon in any locality. For example, whenever the DNA analyses reveal differences in two clades that were thought to be the same species, it is time to search for new taxonomic characters that we might have missed before, and for that reason it is also important to have a good knowledge of the morphology of each species. Both morphological and DNA-based identifications have limitations and advantages so, if you have the opportunity to use both, why choose only one?

Ana

First visit to Bergen for the Cirratulidae project

We had guest researcher Maël Grosse visiting the lab earlier this winter. Here’s a blog post from his stay:

As part of my recently started Artsdatabanken project, I have just completed a month long visit here at the invertebrates collections. It was a lot of work, but also a lot fun. Everyone was very helpful, providing me with worms to identify (a literally never ending supply!), helping me with the scanning electron microscope and spending hours discussing worms and taxonomy. 

My project aims to study and map the diversity of a large family of polychaetes: Cirratulidae. Cirratulids are notoriously difficult to identify, having few characters to work with hidden between the mass of tentacles and branchiae they drag around (Fig. 1). They are quite common and diverse, but poorly known, which is what I am aiming to fix.

Fig. 1. A SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) image of a Cirratulid made at the ELMI lab in Bergen.  Photo: Katrine Kongshavn

Bergen Museum has the largest collection of polychaetes in Norway, with samples ranging from the North Sea to the Arctic waters of Svalbard, and from the intertidal coastal waters to the abyssal depths of the North-East Atlantic. And indeed, thousands of cirratulid polychaetes were waiting on the shelves to be identified. As it is the environment I had been working the most with in the past couple of years, for this visit I decided to focus on deep sea species. This led me to check samples from all over the Norwegian Sea, including some unique and exciting environments such as the depths of Sognefjord or hydrothermal vents.

At the end of the month, over 5500 specimens, belonging to about 23 species have been examined (Fig. 2). While the majority could be given an name or a species number (in the case of as of yet unnamed species), many could not be identified with confidence, because they were  incomplete specimens or from an area where a particular species had not been recorded before. There were even two species I think I had never seen before, which is a very good result for the project! In that case, I selected specimens for DNA barcoding, which will help confirming their identity. I have picked out about 300 specimens for barcoding, so now there is quite a bit of work to do back in my home lab to sequence them all.

Fig. 2. Cirratulidae samples at UMB. Photo: Maël Grosse

So in the end, I would say it was very productive visit, and I will certainly be back for more worms!

-Maël Grosse

Unraveling copepod secrets one leg at a time

A blog by HYPCOP

Hyperbenthic copepods (HYPCOP) are a very difficult and diverse group to work with, and identification goes painstakingly slow, because some species can only be distinguished from one another based on small details in some of their tiny legs. As of now, we have no specialists in marine benthic copepods in Norway and our greatest resource is our collaborator Anders Hobæk and the detailed drawings of G.O. Sars from the early 1900s .

Working together under guidance of G.O. Sars and Anders Hobæk

Anders is a senior researcher scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) here in Bergen. He is specialized in copepod taxonomy, but his focus was mostly on freshwater copepods, or marine pelagic copepods. Which makes the marine benthic copepods just a little bit more challenging to work with, however, his skills are transferable and so we get together multiple times a year to work on our collection of benthic copepods to dissect them and identify them.

Beginning of June, we had again one of those get togethers in Flødevigen at the Institute of Marine Research (IMR), where Tone Falkenhaug, the project leader of HYPCOP, is situated. For a week we went through the main clades and groups of species that we had DNA barcodes of but not yet a confirmed species name. A lot of the identification was done with help of the rich and detailed illustrations of G.O. Sars1 published work in 1901 – 03 and 1919 – 21, “An account of Crustacea of Norway”

Detailed copepod drawings from G.O. Sars

Sars dedicated a lifetime of identifying and describing a variety of species and he did not neglect the rich and wonderful group of bottom dwelling copepods. Every species he encountered in those early days he described and drew in detail; he did not leave out the smallest details, that as of now, turn out to be of uttermost importance in determining the species. With small copepods you need a good microscope and fine tools. The first thing to look at is the general shape, is it very dorsally flat, like Peltidium purpureum, or more dimensional like Harpacticus flexus?

Sex is also an important feature; females are often characterized by carrying eggs; one egg sack or two egg sacks can already lead you in the right group. Males have often larger antennule made for holding on to females when mating, and other specialized tools that can be species specific. The little claws, called maxilliped, are they large, small, almost invisible? What about the first pair of legs? The second, third and fourth? The fifth pair of legs is often very characteristic for the species and in certain females, like Thalestris longimana, can be a huge in comparison of the rest of its body.

Thalestris longimana, females of this species has relatively large fifth pair of legs

Our work has a continues workflow consisting of, collecting the copepods, extracting their tissue for DNA barcoding, and keeping the exoskeleton. Once the DNA is successfully sequenced, we can take the exoskeleton and dissect the animal leg by leg to finalize the identification. That way the copepod is identified based on its DNA and morphological features, as this is not always mutually exclusive. DNA can be tricky as you need a good reference library to find the correct species, which is as of now, not complete, or even lacking for many species. Besides, there is such things as DNA contamination, cross contamination between species, therefore you always must look at the morphology to exclude that the DNA gives you the wrong species. Together with images of the animals we are building up a valuable reference library of DNA sequences and a museum collection of dissected animals on fixed slides. This way copepod diversity will continue to be valuable for future generations top study.

Working under the eyes of G.O. Sars

-Cessa

1Sars, G. O. 1901-03. An Account of the Crustacea of Norway. Vol. IV. Copepoda Calanoida.- Bergen Museum, Bergen & Christiana. 171 pp. + 109 plates Sars, G. O. 1919-21. An Account of the Crustacea of Norway. Vol. VII. Copepoda. Supplement. – Bergen Museum, Bergen & Christiana. 121 pp. + 74 plates

Fieldwork for two projects

The projects HypCop (bottom-associated copepods) and Hardbunnsfauna (Invertebrate fauna of marine rocky shallow-water habitats) went on a day-trip to three localities last week.

We made the most of the sunny and calm weather to visit a very exposed site on Sotra, where we collected in the tide pools and on the barnacle-encrusted intertidal.

Afterwards, we went to two marinas, Glesvær and Hjellestad, on a quest for some specific species the projects were in need of.

Back in the lab we set to work documenting the colours of the animals by photographing them alive, as the colours tend to face in fixatives.

It was nice day in the field, and it looks like we found the species we were after!

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram as @PlanetCopepod and @Hardbunnsfauna

– Jon, Cessa & Katrine

 

HYPCOP workshop in Flødevigen

From the 7th to the 11th of March the HYPCOP team once more sat together to work on the identification of the species we have in the collection. The strategy was similar as we had in Bergen last year, but this time we looked focus into specific clades. Besides, we met in Flødevigen this time, instead of Bergen, and visited Tone Falkenhaug at her jobsite with the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (IMR, Havforskningsinstituttet).

The HYPCOP team in Flødevigen, from ltr; Cessa Rauch (UiB), Jon Kongsrud (UiB), Anders Hobæk (NIWA) & project leader Tone Falkenhaug (IMR).

One way for identifying species of hyperbenthic copepods is by looking at their colors. Unfortunately, these get lost as soon as you fixate the samples in technical ethanol. Therefore, we started the workshop with a short sampling trip just out of the bay in front of the research station. We took a small boat from the research station that had a manual operated hinge on the back of the boat, so we could use that for pulling up the grab.

Preparing the small IMR boat with use of the manual hinge and the grab.

Anders Hobæk operating the grab

One of the advantages of working with tiny animals is that you sometimes only need small gear to collect them. The grab we used is hand size grab, not much bigger than a 10L basket.

However, as it is made entirely out of metal it is still heavy, which ensures it will be able to “grab” the mud from the bottom when it hits the sea floor.

Once we arrived at a nice location with the boat, we placed the grab over the edge of the boat and let it sink to the bottom which was about 40m deep.

Once the grab would touchdown it would close and engulf softbottom material including the animals that are associated with it. The closed grab would be town back with the manual hinge from the boat. Once onboard, we would empty the grabs content in a bucket and sieve some of the material. This material would go back to the lab for examination.

We carefully examined the sediment, and it was not yet very rich with benthos. We caught a few interesting copepods species, that we documented and fixated for identification.

One of the species we caught with the grab

March is not the best season for benthic copepod sampling, the water is still very cold from the winter and most of the small algae needs to grow back. Benthic copepods are much more abundant with rising temperatures and lots of algae growth. Back in the laboratory we started working on our museum collection copepods and assigned clades in our family tree that we would examine first.

Tone Folkenhaug (left) and Anders Hobæk (right) concentrated with dissecting copepods.

Bigger clades had more priority, and so we took those samples and checked the individual specimens. All the specimens we had in our collection are exoskeleton remnants from the DNA extraction (hence we could have a phylogenetic tree). The exoskeletons are still good for morphology identification but hard to see (due to there translucent nature). Therefore, to help with the identification we would often stain the exoskeletons either with lactophyl blue or lignin pink, which resulted in a visually pleasing collection of prepared slides of different colors.

Slides of Lactophyl and lignin pink stained copepods

Thanks to the workshop we now have manage to identify 145 out the 580 specimens; our efforts for identifying will continue and a new workshop is already planned, we meet again in June and in September, with also this time, help of international researchers!

Stay tuned with @planetcopepod!

-Cessa

Hydrozoa course 2022 edition – as told by our MSc student Ana González

Last month, our project NorHydro (together with ForBio Research School of Biosystematics and project MEDUSA) organized a course on diversity, systematics and biology of Hydrozoa at the Marine Biological Station in Espegrend. Fifteen participants from 9 different countries came all the way to Bergen to learn more about these intriguing animals, share their ideas and projects, and start new collaborations. We asked one of the youngest members of the group –our highly motivated student Ana González– to share with us her thoughts about the course and her experiences with her MSc project. This is what she had to say:

When I started my Master’s Degree of Marine Ecology at the University of the Balearic IslandsI already knew about the existence of hydrozoans, but I had no idea how interesting these animals actually were. After some discussions, a lot of reading, and a fair amount of looking at pictures of hydroids and hydromedusae, I decided to work with these inconspicuous invertebrates for my MSc project under the supervision of Dr Luis Martell (University Museum of Bergen) and Dr. Maria Capa (University of the Balearic Islands). My project aims to evaluate whether we can use the benthic communities of hydrozoans as bioindicators of anthropogenic impact on the easternmost coasts of Mallorca Island, in the Mediterranean Sea.

Me on a sampling day looking for benthic hydrozoans at the marine reserve of Cala Gat (top). A closer view of the hard substrates I sample in the marine reserve (bottom left). The common hydroid Monotheca obliqua growing on Posidonia oceanica (bottom right). Picture credits: Maria Capa and Ana González.

Coastal areas are an attractive place to live, and these habitats provide ecosystem services that contribute greatly to the economy of the world, but a bad management of them can generate important damages and drastic changes in the ecosystem. One way to monitor environmental impacts in these habitats is by observing the response of their biological communities, so for this project I decided to study the assemblages of benthic hydrozoans in two opposite sites with different levels of anthropogenic impact: a harbor and a marine reserve. Moreover, I am comparing the communities in different seasons of the year, and I will analyze the assemblages growing on hard substrates (like rocks) and also those growing on a very important Mediterranean soft substrate: the endemic seagrass Posidonia oceanica.

Some hydroids common in my study area are those belonging to genera Clytia (family Campanulariidae, left), Sertularella (family Sertularellidae, middle), and Aglaophenia (family Aglaopheniidae, right). Picture credits: Ana González.

At the beginning, working with benthic hydrozoans was very challenging for me since the specimens I find are easily overlooked if one is not searching carefully for them. But the more time I dedicate to observe these organisms, the more curious I became about their identity and dynamics, and the easier it was to recognize them in the samples. However, identifying hydrozoans is a difficult task and I realized early that I needed some help, so I was very happy when the opportunity arose to apply for the course “Diversity, Systematics and Biology of Hydrozoa” in Bergen. There, I had the chance to meet some of the leading scientific experts in the field that helped me understand better the taxonomy and ecology of these animals. I couldn’t have imagined how much I was going to learn during the different activities of the course, but at the end these organisms were able to catch my attention and time flew between lectures, sampling trips, and laboratory work. One aspect of the course that I particularly enjoyed is the fact that it brought together participants with different trajectories in science, and everybody was happy to share their experiences in the world of hydrozoan science.

We had all kinds of weather during the course: rain, sun, wind, and even snow! Picture credits: Lara Beckmann and Joan J Soto Àngel.

We had the chance to sample on board the UiB research vessel Hans Brattström and we collected several planktonic and benthic hydrozoans in the fjords around the Marine Station. After each sampling event, we went back to the lab to sort the samples, find the hydrozoans and identify them to species. The plankton samples were usually the first ones to be processed, since hydromedusae are quite fragile and they tend to suffer morphological damages after being sampled with a net. We tried to identify all specimens to species level, with the aid of the stereomicroscopes and scientific literature with identification keys that the curse provided. The benthic samples were placed in aquariums to keep the organisms alive and then each of us had the opportunity to observe the specimens in our own stereomicroscope.

A sampling day on board of RV Hans Brattström. Top left: deploying the plankton net. Top right: a full cod-end with plankton sample. Middle right: students and teachers ready to leave the pier. Bottom: benthos sampling with the triangular dredge. Picture credits: Lara Beckmann, Sabine Holst, Luis Martell

Top right and left: students and teachers at the laboratory, identifying hydrozoans. Bottom left: searching for hydromedusae and siphonophores in the plankton sample. Picture credits: Sabine Holst and Lara Beckmann.

All together, we were able to find and identify more than 40 species from all the main groups of hydrozoans, including siphonophores, trachylines, leptothecathes, and anthoathecates. Working with hydromedusae was new for me and I discovered that observing them was more challenging than identifying the polyps, but it was also interesting in its own way. The hydrozoans that caught my attention the most were the polyps from the suborder Capitata, because their morphology is very different from the hydroids that I have observed in my MSc project so far. Capitate hydroids don’t have a protective theca, they possess tentacles that end up in a ball of nematocysts (so-called capitate tentacles), and they are absent from almost all my samples from Mallorca, which are instead dominated by hydroids belonging to the Order Lepthothecata.

Top: Colony of Sarsia lovenii (Anthoathecata: Corynidae) with gonophores (i.e. reproductive buds on the polyp body). You can also see the capitate tentacles, which end in a ball of nematocysts and are typical for suborder Capitata. Bottom: Colony of Clava multicornis showing also gonophores on the polyp body, but with filiform (non-capitate) tentacles. Picture credits: Lara Beckmann (top), Joan J. Soto Àngel (bottom).

My interest for hydrozoans, the great set of experts we had as teachers, and the charismatic animals that we collected were the perfect combination for me to have an incredible experience in this course. I think that courses like these are an excellent opportunity for beginners to learn with experts from different parts of the world. Interacting with all of these amazing people was very rewarding at both cultural and scientific levels, and this whole experience motivated me to keep on studying these interesting animals that are a part of the complex functioning of our oceans.

-Ana

Bryozoa-workshop at Espegrend

February 14th -18th 2022

The Bryozoa are maybe not the most famous of animals, so let’s start with a quick rundown: Bryozoa, also known as Polyzoa, Ectoprocta, or moss animals (mosdyr, på norsk) are a phylum of aquatic invertebrates. Bryozoans, together with phoronids and brachiopods, have a special feeding structure called a lophophore, a “crown” of hollow tentacles used for filter feeding, which you can see in action in the video Tine captured:

In Norway we have 292 species registered, of which 281 are marine (Kunnskapsstatus for artsmangfoldet 2020, pdf here). It is estimated that the actual number of species present is higher. Further, several known species are considered “door knocker species” that may establish here within the next 50 years.

Bryozoa mostly live in colonies made up of tiny individual animals called zooids, which grow in a variety of shapes, and some of them provide structural habitats for other species. They are food for many other animals, namely nudibranchs, fish, sea urchins, pycnogonids, crustaceans, mites and starfish. Marine bryozoans are often responsible for biofouling on ships’ hulls, on docks and marinas, and on offshore structures. They are among the first colonizers of new or recently cleaned structures, and may hitchhike to new places with marine traffic. (Bonus: they have a super interesting fossil record, and this can be used to tell us more about the world in the way back!)

A few of the shapes the colonies can grow in. Pictured are 1: Membraniporella nitida 2: Bugula sp. 3: Flustrella hispida 4: Crisia eburnea

They are one of the focus groups of Hardbunnsfauna: there is still a lot we do not know about them!

Ernst Haeckel – Kunstformen der Natur (1904), plate 23: Bryozoa. Public domain, accessed through Wikipedia

Planning in a pandemic is not easy, and we have had to postpone our plans for this gathering several times. The second week of February we could finally gather our “Team Bryozoa” here in Bergen for a week of in-depth studies of these fascinating animals.

Team Bryozoa (centre), from left Piotr, Mali, Jo and Lee Hsiang, and some of the animals they studied. Group photo by Piotr Kuklinski

In total we were 11 participants;
University Museum of Bergen: Endre, Jon, Tom and Katrine,
Natural History Museum in Oslo: Lee Hsiang and Mali,
NTNU University Museum: Torkild, Tine (MSc. student) and Tiril (MSc. student),
and our two visitors from abroad:
from the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences came Piotr,
and from the Heriot Watt University (Orkney Campus), Joanne.

The main focus of the workshop was to get as many samples and species as possible identified, work though the DNA barcode vouchers from samples submitted in advance and reach a consensus on which species the dubious ones were, to network with our colleagues, and to include the students in the work and the team. It all went swimmingly, and a we had a very productive and enjoyable week!

check out @hardbunnsfauna on Instagram for more!

 

We set up camp on Espegrend Marine Biological station, and combined long days in the lab studying material collected throughout the project with shorter trips out on R/V Hans Brattstrøm.

Here we collected live colonies, introduced the students to various collecting methods, and let everyone catch some fresh fjord air.

 

Tine (top left) working together with Mali in the lab and in the field.

 

 

Tine is doing her master thesis on the species distribution of Bryozoa in shallow water along the Norwegian coast.

During the workshop she got the chance to have some of the difficult species identifications verified by the experts,  and she prepared a plate of 95 tissue samples that will be DNA barcoded though NorBOL.

 

 

Tiril, top left, together with Jon on the ship and working in the lab.

 

We also had Tiril with us, who is just starting out on what will become a thesis on ascidians (sea squirts), most likely with a focus on species in the genus Botryllus and Botrylloides. 

She worked together with Tom, getting familiar with the literature and the methods used for working on the group. Like Tine, she will be using a combination of traditional morphology based methods and genetic data.

 

A few impressions from the week

Going forward we’ll first send the plate of tissue samples to CCDB to be sequenced, fingers crossed for good results! During the week, *so many* samples were identified, so we will certainly be preparing more plates during the spring. All the identified samples will be included into the scientific collections of the museum.

Thank you so much to all the participants for their efforts!

-Katrine