More about… Fieldtrip to Mozambique – hunting for seaslugs

Chromodoris africana (Zavora, Inhambane). This species is part of a complex in need of revision where other “species” imaged here are also part of (e.g. Chromodoris hamiltoni, Hypselodoris regina, Chromodoris elisabethina)

Chromodoris cf. elisabethina (Zavora, Inhambane)

On the 27^th January we left the subtropical latitudes and moved into the tropics where we established our base-camp in the town of Vilanculos overlooking the Bazaruto Archipelago Natural Park – a string of six islands surrounded by coral reefs. Regrettably a spiral of bureaucracy and administrative complications made impossible to obtain the necessary collecting permit to sample in the pristine reefs of the Natural Park. Alternative good sampling sites were not that easy to find and the weather conditions also didn’t help much with strong winds and some rain, resulting in a very choppy sea. We decided to move back south one day before scheduled and spend two days in the village of Paindane with great tidal and inshore reefs housing an extraordinary diversity of slugs. Here we sampled both at night- and day-time and was impressive to see the faunal differences between these two periods of the day.

Heading for snorkeling during spring tide in a tidal reef in Zavora.

On the 2^nd February we travelled back to the village of Zavora where we had meet for the beginning of the campaign. We spend the last three days sampling in Zavora a truly hot spot for marine slugs; the diversity in the tidal and subtidal reefs exceeds anything I have experienced before. My colleagues from the Zavora Marine Lab have already registered the occurrence of nearly 200 species in these reefs and even so we managed to add to the list a few more!

Sorting the catch on the beach in Vilanculos with the Bazaruto Natural Park on the back scene

Overall, about 80 species were collected during our fieldtrip but the identification of several of them requires now detailed study and will integrate ongoing projects at the Natural History Museum of Bergen.

Chromodoris tennentana (Zavora).

Hypselodoris nigrolineata (Zavora, Inhambane)

Hypselodoris nigrostriata (Zavora, Inhambane)

Goniobranchus cf. tinctorius (Vilanculos). This is part of another complex of species in need of systematic study

Nembrotha purpureolineata (Zavora).

Flabellina rubrolineata (off Benguerra I, Bazaruto archipelago).

Protaeolidia cf. juliae, a cryptic nudibranch on its prey species of sea-fan coral.

Micromelo undatus (Zavora). Presently at the University Museum we are revising the systematics of this species regarded as cosmopolitan but likely made up of three or four morphologically very similar lineages.

On the road between Vilanculos and Paindane at 90km/h…!

Fieldtrip to Mozambique – collecting sea slugs in the most diverse marine biota of the World

Chromodoris hamiltoni (Barra reefs, Inhambane, Mozambique)

A sand flat lined with mangroves and coconut trees (Barra estuary, Inhambane, Mozambique)

The tropical Indo-West Pacific harbours the highest diversity of marine life in the World with many species still undescribed. In the region, the eastern coast of Africa is one of the less studied areas and few opisthobranchs gastropods have been recorded in Mozambique with a coastline of 2,700 km stretching across sub-tropical and tropical latitudes.

Heading for sampling on a sand flat with seagrass (Barra estuary, Inhambane, Mozambique)

Together with colleagues from the Zavora Marine Lab (Mozambique) I will be surveying the southern part of Mozambique between the village of Zavora – approximately 500 km north of the border with South Africa – and the tropical archipelago of Bazaruto. This 3-weeks fieldtrip (16 Jan–6 Feb) is part of an effort to document the diversity of opisthobranchs at a global scale and to understand the biogeography and speciation patterns of these molluscs.

After a couple of initial days in Zavora we headed north to the region of Inhambane, famous for its aggregations of manta rays and whale sharks where we spent about a week sampling for the far most spectacular sea slugs!

Roboastra gracilis (Paindane, Inhambane, Mozambique)

A species of sacoglossan (Placida sp.) found inside the “bubble” algae Valonia sp where it lives and feeds from.

Pupa solidula (Barra estuary, Inhambane, Mozambique)

Phyllidia marindica (Barra reefs, Inhambane, Mozambique)

Philine aperta (Barra estuary, Inhambane, Mozambique)

Hypselodoris rudmani (Barra reefs, Inhambane, Mozambique)

Hypselodoris regina (Barra reefs, Inhambane, Mozambique)

Hypselodoris maridadilus (Barra reefs, Inhambane, Mozambique)

The flamboyant cephalaspidean species Hydatina physis (Zavora, Inharrime, Mozambique)

Halgerda wasinensis (Barra reefs, Inhambane, Mozambique)

Glossodoris cf. plumbea (Barra reefs, Inhambane, Mozambique)

An undescribed species of Doris nudibranch (Barra reefs, Inhambane, Mozambique)

Costasiella kuroshimae, a sacoglossan that lives on the green algae Avrainvillea sp. (Barra estuary, Inhambane, Mozambique)

Traditional Mozambican family housing with huts arranged in a circle around a communal central area

Stats!

We’re nearing the end of the year (!), and ’tis the season for evaluations.

I have looked into how our three blogs (namely the Norwegian and English version of the collections blog, and our blog on the project on marine fauna of western Africa (MIWA)) have fared.

The collection blogs began in April this year, the MIWA blog went live in June.

People have shown much interest in our doings, here are the stats:

We thank all of our readers for the attention, and hope you have enjoyed your glimpse into the collection work. We hope to “see” you again in the new year!

For now, we wish you all a

Publicity in Barcode Bulletin

Barcode Bulletin is a newsletter from International Barcode of Life (IBOL). Barcode Bulletin Vol. 4, No. 2 – December 2013 has recently published two stories about activites we are involved in. One nice piece of news is that the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Center and the Research Council of Norway has decided to fund the NorBol consortium. The other news are about our summer 2013 workshop in the MIWA-project which was co-funded via IPBES.

More from the PolyNor workshop

As usual, we use a variety of methods to work with our animals – these include use of stereo microscope, “ordinary” microscope, and electron scanning microscope (SEM). Below are some pictures of work in progress during today.

Work in the lab, SEM photos of complete animals and of tiny details, talks and stacks of material. (Pictures by A. Mackie and K.Kongshavn)

PolyNor Workshop on the MAREANO material

This week our lab is teeming with activity as twelve researchers goes to work on our polychaete material, focusing mainly on that which has been collected by the MAREANO program.

Worm work in progress!
Photos by Andy Mackie (SEM photograph by K. Kongshavn)

As mentioned previously, the material collected by MAREANO gets split into size based fractions, which then receive different treatments. As far as the polychaetes go, MAREANO carries out routine identification on what is collected by grab (1 mm) and beam trawl (5 mm), all of which has been fixed in formalin (until this year, where it was begun fixing half of the beam trawl in ethanol). Thus we already have some idea of what to expect to find in the material.

At the Invertebrate Collections we have processed a lot of bulk samples from the fractions that MAREANO does not utilize, and lately we have especially focused on the Ethanol fixed material, as this can be used for genetic work.

This workshop is part of the Polychaete diversity in the Norwegian sea (PolyNor) project. This project aim to explore the diversity of polychaetes in the Nordic seas;

The Norwegian Sea holds a diverse fauna of polychaete worms, more diverse than previously anticipated. Recent work has discovered several new species and species described in the old literature but not seen since their description, has been rediscovered. Material from new samples will be targeted to discover the true diversity of polychaetes in the Norwegian Sea.

During the workshop we will work on some of the groups with especially tricky taxonomy, prioritizing the identifying of specimens fixed in ethanol, and select individuals that are especially suited for genetic work. And of course we will also discuss current topics, find and reconnect with collaborators, drink an unholy amount of coffee, and learn some new things!

Friday Photo: the bristles of a bristle worm

These are the bristles of a polycheate viewed at 3310 times magnification in a scanning electron microscope. So pretty!

These are the bristles of a polychaete viewed at 3310 times magnification in a scanning electron microscope. So pretty!

Home, sweet home

I came across these two bristle worms from the genus Nothria whilst sorting out the animals from a sample collected in the Barents sea by the MAREANO project, and wanted to show you how differently they’ve approached the choice of building materials for their tubes. They build the tube around their bodies to protect themselves from predators. Now, a Nothria outside its “house”, or tube, looks like this (scale bar is 2 mm) :

Nothria out of tube

The same animal inside its tube looked like this:

Typical tube, built out of sand grains and small rocks

And then there was this one, who had made a more select choice of building materials:

Fancy edition; built using empty bivalve shells

Fall cruise with MAREANO

R/V G.O. Sars

I’m onboard the research vessel “G.O. Sars”, participating in the last MAREANO cruise of the year. We’re currently on our way back out to the sampling sites after seeking refuge in a fjord from the storm yesterday.

Sampling areas. The yellow area is finished, the brown ones are work in progress. From mareano.no

The area we’re working on is outside Møre & Romsdal, currently we’re on our way to a set of video stations whilst we wait for the sea swell to die down (it’s quite the rollercoaster here at the moment!). We have two-three full stations remaining, hopefully we’ll be able to finish those as well before the cruise ends this Friday.

Campod. It has one main HD camera, and two additional cameras to aid in the handling of it.

“Full station” means that we in addition to videoing the sea floor for a 700m long transect with our remotely controlled video rig, the Campod 2, also collect physical samples.

From the video room (the smallest room onboard, and the most crowded!)

This is done using a variety of gears, which collectively gives us a extensive insight in the properties of the area we’re working on. On board we have a team of biologists, geologists and a chemist. The geologists and chemist are after sediment cores, which provide a window back in time for analyses of the physical and chemical parameters of the sea floor, including the accumulation of pollution. How far back a core extends will depend on the sedimentation rate, and on how long the core we manage to extract is.

Multicorer in action

The multicorer collects six sediments cores in one go

For collecting animals, we are using three main gears: the epibenthic RP-sled, the beam trawl, and the grab. These collect different parts of the fauna, and (together with the video) gives us a fair understanding of the species diversity and composition.

The grab (a van veen) collects a quantifiable amount of animals exceeding 1 mm in size. We take two grabs at each full station.

The grab (a van veen) collects a quantifiable amount of animals exceeding 1 mm in size living in the sediment. We collect two grabs at each full station.

Incoming grab

A typical grab sample. We carefully rinse the mud through a 1 mm sieve, collecting the animals within it.

The noble art of playing with mud and water

RP sled (left) and the beam trawl. The sled collects the small animals living just above and in the upper layer of sediment. The beam trawl collects the macro- and megafauna living above and within the top layer of the bottom.

Beam trawl catch: various starfish

Beam trwal catch: sea cucumbers (Stichopus)

Beam trawl catch: sea cucumbers (Stichopus)

Rough!

Calm

We’ve had some glorious sunrises whilst working on deck

Fulmars and gulls are alos following us, hoping we'll give up on the small animals and start catching fish for them

Fulmars and gulls are following us, hoping we’ll give up on the small animals and start catching fish for them

Three gannets are also trailing us, they’ve been around since we left Kristiansund. Gorgeous birds!

Now we’ve arrived at the next station, so I’d better get going!

Good-bye Greenland!

The last days before leaving the Arctic Station were busy: last boat trip, last samples, last possibility for filming work with the underwater-camera. Personal projects to finish, lab to clean, things to pack, and on top of all that: a football match against the Qeqertarsuaq “Old Boys”!

Last days in the lab: full house! The underwater film team: Mette and Jenny

Bathing between icebergs – who can resist?

Football match against the Qeqertarsuaq “Old boys”, who turned out to be not that old… and pretty fit!

We left the Arctic station on a beautiful sunny day and headed towards Ilulissat, where we spent two days in wait for our flights back to first Kangerlussuaq and then Copenhagen. And beautiful days that was: Ilulissat is known for its icebergs and some of us took an icefjord tour on a handsome, oldish, boat with red paint and wooden deck. And – to our surprise – it turned to be out the old Porsild – the Arctic Station’s former research vessel!

On the way to the ice fjord in Ilulissat – on board of the boat that turned out to be the Arctic Station’s former research vessel (the “old” Porsild!).

Now we are back to our respective homes – wrapping up coursework and getting on with our lives, PhD projects, master theses, scientific work and teaching. But we all agree: this was a very special course bringing us close to Arctic nature and providing us with outstanding possibilities to collect and study Arctic marine organisms. We could both widen our taxonomic knowledge and – in different degrees – even get data that are of direct use for our ongoing research projects.

At the end of this blog, we want to thank all those who helped us during this trip: Ole Stecher and Akaaraq Mølgaard at the Arctic Station, the crew of RV Porsild: skipper Frederik Grønvold and boatmen Søren and Johannes. Also, we are thankful to Reinhard Møberg Kristensen (Univ. Copenhagen) for suggestions concerning sampling sites and use of equipment!

The Research School in Biosystematics (ForBio) is funded by the Research Council of Norway and by the Norwegian Taxonomy Initiative – thanks for making a course like this possible!

And thanks to all of you who have been following us via this blog!

Written by: Christiane Todt (coordinator ForBio, University Museum of Bergen); Featured image: (Jenny) under the rainbow. Photo: Anne-Helene Tandberg

The Invertebrate Collections

The University Museum of Bergen