Smashing Success!

Tuesday, August 9/2011

What a great afternoon to do some sampling of phytoplankton, microphytobenthos, and macroalgae!!!

The interns are eager to start and continue sampling for Sherill's project.

We are checking our map, and checking it twice, literally. As the one loan wolf of each group must wade out into the fishpond first in order to find the proper GPS co-ordinates of our designated station. Alas, we have reached the proper co-ordinates, so let the sampling begin. At each station on the map (about 139 in total) we start by measuring the water depth. Then to sample the phytoplankton, we put a dark bottle (a bottle which doesn't allow light to penetrate through) about 20 cm below the surface, open the lid and let the phytoplankton organisms flow in. The contents of these dark bottles are then filtered through so that just the phytoplankton remains on the filter.

Next, we sample the macroalgae. This requires some finesse with a snorkel and a weight belt. We are interested in the biomass, so to aid in this we did 3 quadrats. For each quadrat we counted how many boxes (out of 25 in total) contain Gracillaria sp., Acanthophora sp., Kappaphycus sp., or mixed algae, or bare sediment. If present we collected a box that contains these species. We must also measure the canopy height of each species if present. Today we find primarily Gracillaria sp. which could be because we are sampling in stations that are very close to the remaining mangroves around the fishpond. Only time will tell.

Next, we sample the microphytobenthos (mpb). Ooo the real fun begins. We get to play around in the mud! To sample the mpb we take 1 quadrat and randomly cored 3 different boxes within that quadrat. To take a sample we took an adapted syringe (which we cut off the end to stick into the sediment) push it as far in as possible and put a rubber stopper on the end to create a suction. Viola we have a core! We then pulled out the syringe and start to push the sediment to the top.

We then put a core section piece, which measured 1 cm tall, and pushed the sediment sample through until it was par with the top of the 1 cm piece. Then we put a slicer through, just under the 1 cm piece. We now have our sample, but wait, alas, we are not quite done yet. We then must subsample. To do this we took a straw and stuck it into the 1 cm piece, with the slicer as the base platform. Then carefully, and thoughtfully, yes I said thoughtfully, we lifted the 1 cm section piece over the straw and carefully put our subsample that was left in the straw into a dark test tube. To do this we huffed and we puffed and we blew into the straw to force the sediment into the test tube.

So that concludes this portion of sampling the PMM (the acronym that I now just made up to stand for phytoplankton, macroalgae, and microphytobenthos) of the fishpond. Although I am sure that acronym has already been said. Stealing my thunder of course.



So...was this day of sampling above our heads?! I think NOT! We came out victorious and successfully sampled and filtered 8 stations in 4 hours. I concur this Tuesday, August 9th to be a smashing success. Pat yourselves on the back interns!