Tag Archives: Field work

Torsvåg through the eyes of two of our MSc students

“Ooh ooh ooh! I found a parasite! Bonita!”
– A phrase not usually heard in the fishing harbor of Torsvåg! But this week was far from the usual fishing business.

Lea (left) and Eva (right) out sampling on the boat. Photos: Eva Samson & Nataliya Budaeva

Heisann!
We are Eva and Lea, and we’re marine biology students in the second semester of our masters degree.

Since we’re writing our master’s theses at the University Museum, we got to be a part of the fieldwork in Torsvåg (Troms) in the last week of May.

Welcome to our first sampling trip with the researchers from the University Museum of Bergen and the University of Tromsø!

scenic shot of a small island connected by a bridge to the bigger island

Torsvåg seen from one of the (smaller) mountains of Vannøya
(Photo: Lea Dober)

As the trip was a joint project by different groups that work on different phyla, we got opportunities to try a lot of different sampling methods.

Here is a couple of our favorites:

Chasing jellies from piers, à la Pokemon “gotta catch them all”
Freediving in the 4°C-cold but crystal-clear water
Setting sail to deeper waters, sampling at depths up to 50 m with a grab and 180 m with a plankton net with pure biceps-power (Kudos to all strong men and women)
Haul away! Sampling from a boat that – unlike our research vessels – does not have a winch, meant a good workout! Here’s Eva, Tom and Jon working the grab, and Praveen and Joan with the plankton net. Photos: Eva Samson, Katrine Kongshavn

A bucket full of joy and jellies! (Photo: Lea Dober)

Following the sampling we also spent quite some hours processing the samples and taking pictures in the lab. I (Eva) had my own little workspace where I usually helped with sorting the benthic samples, mostly focusing on annelids as I’m also working on these in my thesis. At the beginning of the week I was struggling to even find worms in between all the sandgrains. But luckily I had a lot of experts sitting in the same room and helping me! And little by little, I got more confident in identifying the common families of polychaetes.

Three people working with stereomicroscopes

Jon, Eva and Tom working in the improvised lab for benthos. Photo: Katrine Kongshavn

And I (Lea) worked in the gelatinous zooplankton lab, right next to the polychaete group. There, I helped with sorting zooplankton, checking the jellies for parasites, and taking pictures of the specimens. A great opportunity to get to know more about the fascinating diversity of jellies in Norway!

At the end of the long days, we usually fell right into bed and even the midnight sun couldn’t keep us from falling asleep within minutes!

our quite unusual home for a week – the Torsvåg lighthouse in the midnight sun! (Photo: Eva Samson)

Not only the life underwater had a lot to offer, but we were also astonished at the spectacular wildlife above the surface. Otters, reindeer, all sorts of arctic birds, you name it…

All in all an incredible week for us master students to learn all the field methods and work on living specimens – quite different from the fixed material in the Museum collection. And a great opportunity to get to know everybody from the marine invertebrate groups better!

Lea & Eva

Sled test for copepods

R.P. sled onboard R/V. H. Brattström

Happy new year to everyone! We managed to start 2021 with a day at sea, testing the R.P. sled for collecting benthic copepods from greater depths . January 27 we went out with research vessel Hans Brattström, crew and research scientist Anne Helene Tandberg who also turns out to be a true sled expert! She would join HYPCOP to teach how to process the samples from the R.P. sled on the boat.

Anne Helene Tandberg (left) joining HYPCOP (Cessa Rauch right) for teaching how to use the sled.

But first, what is an R.P. sled and why is it such an important key in the collection of copepods? The R.P. sled is an epibenthic sampler. That means that it samples the epibenthic animals – the animals that live just at the top of the (soft) seafloor – and a majority of these are often small crustaceans. The “R.P.” in the name stands for Rothlisherg and Pearcy who invented the sled. They needed to collect the juveniles of species of pandalid shrimp that live on the sea bottom floor. These animals are very small so a plankton net was necessary to collect them; a ‘normal’ dredge would not quite cut the job. They needed a plankton net that could be dragged over the bottom without damaging the net or the samples and also would not accidently sample the water column (pelagic); and so, the R.P. sled was born. This sled was able to go deeper than 150m, sample more than 500m3 at the time and open and close on command which was a novelty in comparison to the other sleds that where used in those days (1977). The sled consists of a steel sled like frame that contains a box that has attached to it a plankton net with an opening and closing device. The sled is heavy, ca. 150kg, and therefore limits the vessel sizes that can operate it; the trawl needs to be appropriately equipped including knowledgeable crew. It is pulled behind the vessel at slow speed to make sure the animals are not damaged and to make sure it does not become too full of sediment that is whirled up.

: Original drawings of R.P. sled by Rothlisherg and Pearcy 1977

: The R.P. sled in modern days with H. Brattström crew member for scale

Sieved animals from the decanting process

So off we went with r/v Hans Brattström pulling the heavy gear at ca. 700m depth with 1 knot and a bottom time of 10 minutes sampling the Krossfjorden close to Bergen. It was a beautiful day for it with plenty of sun and calm seas. The crew handled most of the sled, leaving sorting the samples up to HYPCOP under the guidance of Anne Helene. Which is not as straight forward as it may sound! The process of filtering the samples after collecting them from the sled is done by decanting, which you can see in this movie from an this blog (in Norwegian) from earlier.

Decanting set-up for R.P. sled samples

Decanting means separating the mixture of the animal soup from the liquid by washing them in a big bucket, throw the liquid through a filter and collect the animals.

Sieved animals from the decanting process

This all needs to be done with care as the animals are often very small and fragile. After collecting, the most time-efficient and best preservation for the samples is to fixate them immediately with ethanol, so they don’t go bad while traveling back to the museum.

Fixating collected animals with technical ethanol

For collecting copepods we use a variety of methods; from snorkeling, to scoping up water and plankton nets, but for greater depths and great quality benthic samples the R.P. sled will be the most important method. We thank Anne Helene for her wisdom and enthusiasm that day for showing HYPCOP how to work with such interesting sampling method

: Anne Helene (left) and HYPCOP (Cessa right) posing with the catch of the day

: Anne Helene (right) using her sled wisdom for fixing the cod-end with H. Brattstrøm crew (left)

We got some nice samples that will be sequenced very soon so we can label them appropriately. Although this first fieldwork trip off the year was mainly a teaching opportunity, we still managed to sample two stations with plenty of copepods and lots of other nice epibenthic crustacea, and Anne Helene is especially happy with all the amphipods she collected during the day. So for both of the scientists aboard this was a wonderful day – sunshine and lovely samples to bring back to the lab!

Some fresh copepods caught with the R.P. sled

– Cessa & Anne Helene

Follow HYPCOP @planetcopepod Instagram, for pretty copepod pictures https://www.instagram.com/planetcopepod/

Twitter, for copepod science news https://twitter.com/planetcopepod

Facebook, for copepod discussions https://www.facebook.com/groups/planetcopepod

See you there!

Door #15: The eye of the beholder

It’s funny to see the different reactions to fresh material that comes in to the museum; the exhibition team had received some kelp that will be pressed and dried for the new exhibitions (opening fall 2019), and I ducked in to secure some of the fauna sitting on the kelp before it was scraped off and discarded. For the botanists, the animals were merely a distraction that needed to be removed so that they could deal with the kelp, whilst I was trying to avoid too much algae in the sample as it messes up the fixation of the animals.

: Big buckets of kelp

: Evaluating some of the kelp – how to press it? The stipes (“stem”) presents some challenges, but is seems to work!

: There is a multitude of epiphytes on the stipes, both algae and animals

I chose the right shirt for the day- it’s full of nudibranchs! (photo: L. Martell)

I then spirited my loot into the lab, and set up camp.

Count me in amongst the people who stare at lumps of seaweed.

: Photo set-up. Picture by C. Rauch

: Nudibranchs and kelp. Picture by C. Rauch

Who’s there? The whole lump is ~12 cm.

How many animals do you see here? Which ones appeal to you?

I have made a quick annotation of some of the biota here:

Note that these are just some of the critters present…! (photo: K. Kongshavn)

Let’s go closer on a small piece of algae:

Now, what do you see? (photo: K. Kongshavn)

For Luis, the first thing to catch the eye was (of course) the Hydrozoa

Hydrozoans (the christmas light looking strings), encrusting bryozoans (the flat, encrusting growth on on the algae – you might also know them as moss animals), and some white, spiralling polychaete tubes (photo: K. Kongshavn)

Did you spot the sea hare (Aplysia punctata?) Look a bit above the middle of the photo of the tiny aquarium with the black background. Do you see a red-pink blob?

Hello, Aplysia punctata! (photo: K. Kongshavn)

There were also several other sea slugs that I have handed over to Cessa for inclusion in the sea slugs of Southern Norway project, here are a few:

: Tiny nudibranch, about 3 mm long

: Bigger nudi, this one was 2 cm and bright yellow – not too hard to see!

: Catch of the day: a nudibranch that the Sea slugs of Southern Norway project so far only had one record of! It is only 4 mm long, so it took some staring to find it..!

Then there were the shelled gastropods:

: Hi!

: Not sure if this is a different species or just another colouring?

: Tiny, tiny gastropod on bryozoa

The brittle star from the earlier image – this is a Ophiopholis aculeata, the crevice sea star (photo: K. Kongshavn)

In fact, they both are Ophiopholis aculeata (in Norwegian we call them “chameleon brittle stars” – they live up to the name!), one of the very common species around here. (photo: K. Kongshavn)

One of the colonial ascidian tunicates (and some of the ever present bryozoa just below it) (photo: K. Kongshavn)

Most of these animals will be barcoded, and will help build our reference library for species that occur in Norway. I also hope that they may have helped open your eyes to some of the more inconspicuous creatures that live just beneath the surface?

2019 will see the start of a new species taxonomy project where we will explore the invertebrate fauna of shallow-water rocky shores, so there will be many more posts like this to come!

-Katrine

Fieldwork with the SponGES project on R/V Kristine Bonnevie – part II

I wanted to write a bit more abou the SponGES cruise, as we are currently entering Sognefjorden on the second spring cruise Luis and I have managed to sign up for (what a job!).

SponGES took us to Korsfjorden, Bømlafjorden, west of Bømlahuken and finally past Fedje and back to Bergen. We ended up with ~70 stations, using grabs, Agassiz trawl, plankton net, RP-sledge and ROV. For the most part the gear performed admirably, though we had some mishaps (and an epic final station, key word being MUD – Anne Helene will have more to say about that one).
The first grab of the new cruise is going down, so I have to be quick; here’s SponGES in pictures (not recorded: lots of laughs and horrible songs)

: Call that a sponge? Now THIS is a sponge!

: Pretty, pretty Norway!

: True stowaway – (s)he hitchhiked to Bergen after blowing onboard

: Fancy slugs

: The awesome student team – you guys did great!

: Plankton net going out

: Can’t ask for calmer waters

: Sieving in the sunset

: How gorgeous is this?

: Sorting trawl catch on deck

: All smiles, even in the spicules

: Many, many buckets

: Well fed! (both us and the catch!)

: Tomopteris polychates from the plankton catch

: Gorgonocephalus

: Fedje

Door #18: A photosynthetic animal

You may already be confused with the title, but you did read it well! Animals can do photosynthesis and most incredibly some species are more efficient than plants or algae. Yet, this achievement is not for all; you must be special, you must be unique…, you must be a sapsucking slug!

Ercolania sp. feeding inside algae (Photo: M. Malaquias)

This is a process named kleptoplasty (= chloroplast symbiosis; see Door #2 of this calendar series) where the slug while feeding from the plant tissue does not digest the chloroplasts but instead migrate these organelles to specific parts of the body where they remain active producing sugars that become available to the slug.

There are two species of sapsucking slugs with a remarkable life-history. The spectacular and rare tropical species Ercolania endophytophaga and E. kencolesi both only known from Australia do not retain chloroplasts as other species do, but they do feed on algae, however, only on a very special kind – the green grape-algae of the Order Siphonocladales. These are syncytial algae made of massive single cell grape-shaped structures which the animal pierce to move in and leave inside until “green-matter” is available.

detail of Ercolania sp. inside algae (Photo: M. Malaquias)

I was very fortunate to find one of this slugs back in January 2014 in southern Mozambique. Usually one has to collect a large quantity of algae to carefully search through later on in the lab and hope for the best! However, in that afternoon while sampling in a beautiful shallow tidal tropical reef in Paindane sluggishly looking at a facies of a “grape-alga” growing over a boulder I suddenly notice a tiny animal moving gently inside the algae. I grabbed a few bunches of algae into my sampling jar to look at later on…, and voilà… I was rewarded with a few specimens of one of this spectacular and difficult slugs most probably an undescribed species, the first from the Indian Ocean.

Ercolania sp. after removal from algae (Photo: M. Malaquias)

-Manuel

Door #16: First molecular-based phylogeny of onuphid bristle worms

Onuphidae are marine bristle worms with very rich external morphology and outstanding diversity of life styles within a single polychaete family. Onuphids can be very abundant in some marine biotopes, modifying the environment by their complex ornamented tubes and influencing the structure of benthic communities. They are very widely spread in the ocean inhabiting various biotopes from the intertidal zone down to hadal depths. Onuphids are widely harvested as bait sustaining local fisheries in southeastern Australia, Mediterranean and Portuguese coasts and are even commercially farmed with the full reproductive cycle from fertilization till fully-grown worms (up to 30 cm in length) in aquaculture facility.

Nothria otsuchiensis – a bristle worm from NSW, Australia (author N. Budaeva)

The system of Onuphidae with 23 genera grouped into two subfamilies has been suggested by Hannelore Paxton (1986) and has been widely accepted since then. The first phylogeny based on the analysis of the combination of 16S rDNA and 18S rDNA genes has been recently published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. None of the subfamilies or tested genera appeared to be para- or polyphyletic showing a strong congruence between the traditional morphology-based systematics of the family and the newly obtained molecular-based phylogenetic reconstruction. However the previously suggested hypotheses on intrageneraic relationships within onuphidae were largely rejected.

Phylogenetic tree of a bristle worm family Onuphidae (Budaeva et al., 2016)

Suggested reading:

Budaeva N., Schepetov D., Zanol J., Neretina T., Willassen E. 2016. When molecules support morphology: Phylogenetic reconstruction of the family Onuphidae (Eunicida, Annelida) based on 16S rDNA and 18S rDNA. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 94(B): 791–801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2015.10.011

Paxton, H., 1986. Generic revision and relationships of the family Onuphidae (Annelida: Polychaeta). Records of the Australian Museum 38, 1–74. http://australianmuseum.net.au/uploads/journals/17658/175_complete.pdf

Aquabait Marine Worm Aquaculture: http://www.aquabait.com.au/about_aquabait_marine_worm_aquaculture.phtml

Nataliya Budaeva’s web page: http://nataliyabudaeva.wix.com/nataliyabudaeva

-Nataliya

Door #12: Plankton sampling with a vertebrate view!

HYPNO participating on an Arctic cruise by the Institute of Marine Research on RV Helmer Hanssen 17 Aug – 7 Sep 2015.

Most of the pelagic hydrozoans for HYPNO are collected with simple plankton nets, in the case of this Arctic cruise the double one you see in the picture. The net is towed vertically from above the bottom to the surface, bringing with it a representative sample of plankton – inclusive hydromedusae and siphonophores – from the entire water column. Standard plankton nets are generally lowered and retrieved at a speed of ~0.5 ms^-1.

This particular station in the Arctic basin was over 2000 m deep, which means that a single tow takes more than an hour to complete. Sometimes waiting for the sample to come up can get a bit tedious – not at this station, though! With this beauty turning up right outside the hangar opening, the wait didn’t feel long at all!

-Aino

Sampling for sea slugs in northern Mozambique (East Africa)

The “tree house”, headquarters of the Conservation and Research project of Vamizi Island

An undescribed species of an aeolid. Vamizi Island.

The tropical waters of the Indian Ocean are part of the world’s richest biogeographical region – the Indo-West Pacific (IWP), where diversity picks its high in the “Coral Triangle” an area confined by the Philippines, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea.

Within this vast realm, the east coast of Africa is probably the least studied area and Moçambique with one of the largest coastlines in the region and pristine mangrove, seagrass, and coral habitats hides a high and still largely unknown diversity of opisthobranch gastropods (sea slugs).

Phyllidia ocellata. Vamizi Island

During January–February of 2014 I had the opportunity to sample in southern Moçambique together with local colleagues from the Zavora Marine Lab. The results have been so promising that we decided to organize a new fieldtrip but, this time to explore the fauna in the northern tropical latitudes of the country. In collaboration with the University Lúrio in Pemba and the Vamizi Conservation and Research Station managed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), we setup during May 2015 a two weeks fieldtrip to Vamizi Island, a remote pristine sanctuary located in the northern range of the Quirimbas archipelago. The goals were to continue the inventory of the sea slug fauna of Mozambique and Indian Ocean but also to collect specific material for several ongoing projects at the University Museum of Bergen (Natural History) related to the systematics, biogeography, and speciation of these molluscs.

Cerberilla ambonensis. Vamizi island

The first challenge was to reach Vamizi! Four flights, a five hours 4-wheels drive, and at last a boat trip – all of it during four days! But, the sight over the turquoise, calm, and warm waters of Vamizi was breathtaking and well worth the effort! We were very well welcomed by the team of the Conservation and Research Project of Vamizi and the management of Vamizi Island, which have provided all the necessary conditions for a successful and pleasant work.

The white sandy beaches and turquoise waters of Vamizi Island

The pristine coastline of Palma in northern Mozambique.

As the following days would unravel the pristine coral reefs, seagrass meadows and mangroves would not disappoint with their incredible diversity of sea slugs and all kinds of colourful marine live. Yet, and contrary to the experience of the previous year where we have collected in several southern sub-tropical areas of Moçambique (Vilankulo, Barra, Paindane, Zavora), this time was not so easy to find sea slugs and often each of us would not collect more than 4 to 10 specimens per dive; but steadily over the 2-weeks of fieldwork we reached the exciting number of about 85 species, with approximately 60 new records for Mozambique and around 14 new to Science. This seems to be a pattern on many pristine tropical areas; low abundances but high diversity of sea slugs.

Photographing the daily catch

The “crew”. Left to right: Erwan Sola (University of KwaZulu-Natal), Isabel Silva (University Lúrio, Pemba / Vamizi Conservation and Research Project), Yara Tibiriçá (Zavora Marine Lab), Manuel Malaquias (University Museum of Bergen), and Joana Trindade (Vamizi Conservation and Research Project)

Transferring specimens to ethanol at Palma beach (Palma village not far from the border with Tanzania), under the puzzled eyes of a group of locals.

University Lurio. Newly graduated students with supervisors and opponents.

The farewell to Vamizi was not easy; the beauty, warm, and peaceful atmosphere of Vamizi together with its incredible underwater diversity and colours will last surely forever in our memories. Yet, the journey was not over! We headed to the town of Pemba for the last three nights where some formalities were still on the agenda.

Professor Isabel Silva from the University Lúrio in Pemba and member of the Vamizi Island Conservation and Research Project and a join-organizer of our expedition, have invited each member of the team to give a seminar at the university and to act as opponents on the defence of several theses of “licenciatura”. While my colleagues have talked about the sea slugs of Moçambique and the coral reefs of Vamizi Island, I decided to get a away from my field of research (but not of interest!) and discourse about “wired animals” such as loriciferans, xenoturbellids, kinorhynchs, and others… Biological diversity is definitely much more than turtles, sharks, whales, and manta-rays…, even goes beyond colourful sea slugs!

Melibe sp. Vamizi Island.

Is this a slug? Yes it is! Marionia arborescens. Vamizi Island.

Chromodoris cf. quadricolor. Vamizi Island.

Chromodoris boucheti. Vamizi Island

Chelidonura punctata. Vamizi Island.

Chelidonura mandroroa. Vamizi Island.

Chelidonura electra. Vamizi Island.

Phyllodesmium cf. magnum. Vamizi Island.

Cadlinella ornatissima. Vamizi island.

Baby green turtles recovered from a damaged nest, with a rare case of albinism in this group of reptiles.

Conservation “on the move”; Release of green baby turtles on the beach at Vamizi Island.

Philinopsis pilsbryi. Vamizi Island.

Coconut crab. Extinct to nearly extinct in many islands of the Indo-Pacific. Vamizi Island.

Another resident of Vamizi Island locally named "jibóia".

A “slimy” resident of Vamizi Island locally named “jibóia”.

A kingfisher bird. Vamizi Island.

An uninvited guest in my bedroom.

A weaver bird. Vamizi Island.

-Manuel

Uncovering the origin of species in the Caribbean region – fieldwork in the Florida Keys

The lab building at Mote (summerland Key)

The tropical western Atlantic and in particular the Caribbean is the second most diverse marine region in the World only outnumbered in species by the Indo-West Pacific. The processes that lead to this richness are not fully understood, but the diversity of habitats, the network of islands and cays, the uplift of the Isthmus of Panama, and the various periods of transient allopatry caused by sea level changes during the Plio-Pleistocene epochs have most likely played a role.

The canal just off the Mote Lab

Anne’s beach (Islamorada); a sandy flat with patches of seagrass and coral

A mooring area with lined by mangroves with the bottom covered by seagrass and algae (Key Largo)

Mangroves at Summerland Key

A Key deer (Odocoileus virginianus clavium). An endemic subspecies of the American white-tailed deer

The iguana is an exotic species very common in the Keys

Pelicans, a daily presence in the Keys

At the Section for Natural History at the University Museum of Bergen we are investigating the causes and timing of marine diversification in the Caribbean using as model a cryptic species complex of a gastropod (the Bulla occidentalis species-complex). This project led us previously to sample in places like Brazil, Venezuela, Guadeloupe, Panama, the Bahamas, and Bermuda and benefited from samples from many other places collected and kindly provided by several colleagues.

The Most Wanted! Bulla occidentalis (Key Largo)

At night sorting through the daily catch

A preliminary molecular phylogenetic analysis of the data have yielded intriguing results with specimens from the Florida Keys depicting an unexpected level of isolation hardly sharing any haplotypes with “conspecifics” from close by neighboring areas like the Florida Peninsula and Cuba. Nevertheless, the reduced number of specimens that we had available from the Florida Keys hampered any sound testing of this trend. Therefore, a fieldtrip to the Keys was organized between the 7–16 January 2015 in order to collect additional specimens from the local representative of the Bulla occidentalis species-complex.

Spurilla braziliana (Key Largo)

Phylaplysia engeli blending with its preferred habitat – seagrass leaves

Hermaea cruciata (Key Largo)

Haminoea sp. (Key Largo)

The Florida Keys are an arc-shaped coral archipelago located off the southern coast of Florida, dividing the Atlantic Ocean to the east from the Gulf of Mexico to the west. The Keys form the southernmost portion of the continental United States; they begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about 24 km south of Miami, and extend in a arc to Key West, the southernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry Tortugas, just 140 km from Cuba.

The base for the all operation was set at Mote Marine Tropical Laboratory in Summerland Key near the southern tip of the Keys. Pleasant accommodation with sea views, a lab equipped with microscopes and seawater on the tap, plus my little red Mazda rented at the Miami airport (by the way… for a week it became the smallest car to ride the roads of the Keys!) were the ingredients to what turn into a very successful fieldtrip.

The Keys stretch over 150 km and a great amount of time was spent finding and exploring good sampling sites. Those varied from mangrove areas with seagrass beds, sandy beaches with patches of seagrass and clumps of coral, to areas densely vegetated by mangroves, algae and seagrass. At the end two populations of Bulla occidentalis were found plus many other spectacular sea slugs. This material is now housed in our systematic collections and will help unraveling the “entrails” that underlie marine speciation and biogeography in the tropical western Atlantic.