Fluid Preservation Course

The Horniman Museum and Gardens

Curating a natural history collection comes with many challenges; how do you “freeze” the specimen in such a state that another taxonomist can request to examine it in 10 (20, 30, 50, 100…) years from now, and expect to find the same characters (the traits that are used for determining which species one is looking at) as the one who originally described or determined the specimen?

Which fluid should then be used as a preservative? Here we nee to take into consideration such features as potential harmfulness, fire hazards, longviety, the possible effects on histology and DNA, resistance to pests, effects on the container it is kept in, etc. etc. And how should the samples be stored? How do you rescue objects that have been damaged?

I spent most of last week attending a course in methods for fixing and preserving natural history specimens in fluid; The «Fluid Preservation Course» was given by Simon Moore at The Horniman Museum in London.

The group

Some of the topics covered included

different methods and chemicals for fixating and preserving specimens,
how to work with glass (cutting, drilling and grinding), especially how to make lids for jars of various sizes,
how to make and repair objects for display,
how to salvage specimens that have been damaged due to dessication, fungi or other perils,
avaliable chemicals and their properties,
how to determine which chemicals the animals are stored in

Making a display part 1: One lizard in a bag. Extract from bag, figure out which preservative has been used, transfer to suitable new preservative.

Making a display part 2: preepare speciemen for being mounted in a suitable jar

Making a display part 2: prepare speciemen for being mounted in a suitable jar

Making a display part 2b: Stitch monofilament in to lizard to mount it on a custommmade piece of glass in the jar.

Making a display part 2b: Stitch monofilament in to lizard to mount it on a custom made piece of glass in the jar (it looks rather brutal, doesn’t it?)

Making a display part 3: Ta-da!

A jar stuffed full of turtles and tortoises in really bad condition – we tried to salvage as much as possible, especially one specimen that was of a species they didn’t have in the museum collection.

Still not in great condition, but at least we can see what’s in the jar now!

Working with glass

Using vaccuum to extract air from dried-out specimens

Dessicated sea horses en route to rehydration

Injecting alcohol in dessiccated specimens to help them rehydrate (and sink).

A fairly messy jar with spiders (with varying numbers of legs still attached) and a tick

The spiders have been mounted on monofilament, the jar has been replaced, and they are now stored in 80% alcohol

The spiders have been mounted on monofilament, the missing legs have been re-attached using class needles and colloidin as glue, the jar has been replaced, and they are now stored in 80% alcohol.

Sponges!

Work in progress

We recently had two taxonomists working of the sponges (Porifera) that MAREANO has collected. They picked out specimens that are of particular interest for their own research, and did a (partial) revision on the rest of the material.

Many samples

Sorted and labeled

Hunting Slugs in The Bahamas

A sand flat lined by mangroves; Eulethera I., The Bahamas

Recent research has showed that something is going on in the Bahamas! Even when specimens from these islands look pretty much alike its “con-specifics” from other parts of the Caribbean region, they show considerable genetic divergence. Likely ecological and/or oceanographic processes are limiting gene-flow between the Bahamas and nearby islands accelerating the rate of speciation.

Rocky shore; Eulethera I., The Bahamas

At the University Museum we want to understand the “entrails” of these processes and therefore we headed to sunny Bahamas for a two-weeks fieldtrip in Eulethera I. Seventeen specimens of opisthobranchs gastropods have been collected and two populations of our model-species, the cephalaspidean Bulla occidentalis, were found inside closed ponds lined by mangroves and limestone. These ponds are very special habitats completely enclosed and only communicating with the ocean by submarine outlets or through the porosity of the limestone rock and can be considered “islands inside islands”.

Turtle Pond; Eulethera I., The Bahamas

DNA will be soon extracted from specimens of the two populations of Bulla occidentalis and compared with that of other populations throughout the tropical West Atlantic from Brazil to Bermuda. This will help understanding processes of historical biogeography and speciation in the highly complex Caribbean region.

Black morph of Bulla occidentals; Eulethera I., The Bahamas

The nudibranch Phidiana lynceus; Eulethera I., The Bahamas

The aglajid Chelidonura normani; Eulethera I., The Bahamas

The aglajid Chelidonura hirundinina; Eulethera I., The Bahamas

The sacoglossan Ascobulla ulla; Eulethera I., The Bahamas

Further work on West African biodiversity

A brittle star, Ophiura ophiura (scale bar is 0.5cm)

In addition to the crabs (Brachyura) discussed in the previous post, we are also focusing on animal groups such as the brittle stars (Ophiuroidea) and bristle worms (Polychaeta).

Currently we are preparing samples for genetic barcoding though the BOLD system.

Here are a couple of photographs of the animals that have been through the mill of identification – photo documentation – tissue sampling this week.

A bristle worm from the family Maldanidae, partially encased in the tube that the animal dwells in (scale bar is 0.5 cm)

Another and rather different looking bristle worm, this time from the family Onuphidae. Scale bar is 0.5 cm

Focus on West African crabs (Brachyura)

R/V Dr Fridtjof Nansen sampling stations for which benthic samples have been deposited in the Invertebrate Collections of Bergen. Red dots: the Canary Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME). Yellow dots: the Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem (GCLME)

Since 2005 the research vessel R/V Dr Fridtjof Nansen has been sampling benthic invertebrates on the continental shelf of the large marine ecosystems (GCLME and CCLME) of West Africa. A large bulk of the material is kept in our collection and is being processed for taxonomic and other studies by several workers.

These days we are particularly focusing on the true crabs (Brachyura) and are preparing specimens for DNA barcoding with the BOLD system. This work will produce open access data (genetics, morphology, distribution) to enhance a broader knowledge about Atlantic marine biodiversity. The project is financially supported by JRS Biodiversity Foundation.

Cronius ruber (Lamarck, 1818) caught off Guinea at 35 m depth in May 2012. (Identification E.Willassen)

Some West African true crabs (Brachyura)

A small assembly of crabs photographed and prepared for DNA barcoding. Some specimens have still kept some colors despite being preserved in ethanol

Launching PolyNor

Earlier this week we went to the Museum of Natural History and Archaeology in Trondheim (NTNU) to initiate the new project “Polychaete diversity in the Norwegian Sea – from coast to the deep sea” (PolyNor). The project is funded through the NBIC, and will run through 2015.

Meet catalogued specimen # 90.000

We recently rounded 90.000 specimens in our scientific collections, and since # 90 000 is such a good representative of what we are currently working on, we’re presenting it here.

Diastyloides biplicatus

This is a Cumacea, or hooded shrimp. It was collected by the MAREANO project. It was then identified by a taxonomist on a workshop arranged by the Department of Biology (UoB), the University Museum and MAREANO. It was then implemented in the Museum’s scientific collection, and chosen to be used as a DNA voucher for the NorBOLproject (Norwegian Barcode of Life). Here it will be part of a comprehensive library of standardized DNA sequences (barcodes) which will serve as a reference resource for the research and management of biodiversity in Norway.

Bioskag Workshop

We began the year with arranging two workshops in January. The first of these was based on the extensive sampling done in the Skagerrak strait in recent years (2006 – today). The aim was to increase the rather poor knowledge of the invertebrate fauna of the region (link is in Norwegian).

The focal group of this workshop was the Polychaetes (bristle worms), and through the effort of the ten attendants, a lot of material was examined. You can read more about this at the blog of the Norwegian Polychaete Forum.

Busy lab

We are currently processing the findings from the workshop, including documenting specimens through photography and drawing. One of the tools we employ for doing this is the scanning electron microscope (SEM), which enables us to make high resolution images at a very high magnification.

A SEM image of a a Sphaerodoridae. Photo: K. Kongshavn

A high magnification close-up of a Polychaete bristle. Photo: K. Kongshavn

Welcome!

The Invertebrate Collections is one of the University Museum’s large collections of scientific zoological material. “Invertebrates” is a traditional grouping for animals without a backbone. At our museum, like in many other scientific collections, invertebrates is the remaining part of the animal kingdom when vertebrates, insects, spiders and millipedes (entomology) have been accounted for. Invertebrates therefore is a diverse group of very different animals with often spectacular ways of life in many types of environments. We still know very little about many species of invertebrates because they are difficult to study and identify. Many species are also still undiscovered. Scientific collections are fundamental sources of knowledge about our zoological diversity. On these pages we want to inform about the contents of the collections and about past and current activities.

If you are interested in doing your master degree in marine biodiversity or adjacent topics at the University Museum of Bergen, we have a blog with currently available thesis topics in marine biodiversity which can be found here.

Our permanent web pages can be found here

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