Did Someone Say Nematodes?

This week, our interns finished week four of their summer research experience at USM GCRL. While we have changed our schedule and our field work because of difficult weather, our interns have adapted and still gotten some great work done in just four weeks. Already, they've gone out to collect water quality data, processed those water quality samples and cleaned up the data for cataloging, collected fish data from seining, and now they have finished conducting gut content analyses for more than 80 specimens (likely more but I don't have the data in front of me to count). They have also prepared multiple whole stomachs for DNA analysis and preserved some otoliths for fish identifications. We are in the field tomorrow to conduct another round of fish sampling, this time using both trawls and seines in hopes of catching some of our target species that eluded us in round one and in an effort to get additional data for their projects. 

Now that they are used to the gut content analysis protocol, I'm able to spend more time in my office working on other projects, but occasionally they will ask me to identify something like a cladoceran, marine debris, or the occasional polychaete. However, this week's picture is brought to you by one of our interns who has found multiple nematodes in samples, which made me laugh because I didn't expect to come upon intact nematodes in the diets of any of our species. Now while we will eventually combine the nematodes with other zoobenthos for our model, I still think the finding is helpful in showing the reliance on or use of benthic prey items in some of our target fish species, especially the small individuals we caught during our first sampling trip. 

Tomorrow I am hoping we catch some slightly larger juvenile specimens, as I know that the dissections on our 10-30 mm fishes required a lot of precise and slow work. This will also be the first time that we will be trawling for this project and we will have five of us to complete fish identifications, water quality data collection, and data recording, which may mean we can also get some good photographs in the field and I won't have to be worried about incoming boat traffic and where the BlueBoat is because we aren't bringing her for this research trip.

Next week, due to a last minute change in our schedule, I will be posting slightly later on Thursday evening than usual, but stay tuned because you don't want to miss the likely photo gallery from these next adventures.

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