Luminophores are [Mostly] Here

This week I am really excited to give you a sneak peak into the bioturbation tracking process. As I mentioned last week, nematodes and other organisms that live in marine sediments burrow throughout the sand/mud to create homes and to allow nutrients like oxygen, nitrogen, etc. to transport in and out of the system. Since nematodes are incredibly small, however, their burrows are equally small and are therefore hard to track with photography. This is why we use particle tracing methods, like luminophores, to track where sediment grains start and end in experimental works.

Today I received my first shipment of powders which I will use to create luminophores. The two powders here are a fluorescent powder and a glow in the dark powder, as I want to know if one is better than the other. I have my current bets on fluorescent powder, but I need to test these methods first. I will use these powders to stain sediment particles and then I will have glow in the dark or fluorescent sediment grains to track throughout the experiment. Throughout the experiment I can use UV lights to excite the particles and then photograph the sediment mesocosms to assess the movement distance of the particles as a proxy for the amount of burrowing that all the animals have done.

Now as this process is completely new to me, my next steps will be to make these fluorescent sediment grains and let them sit in sediment samples before photographing and tracking the particles. While the manufacturer of these powders claim that they should be added to media like paint to color the paint, I'm wondering if I can make a slurry that will color the sediment itself. If this process doesn't work, I think that instead I can buy these particles at the same size as the sediment grains and then track individual particles rather than sediment grains, but that's a problem for the future.

Super excited to show you how this turns out.

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