The Need for Fluorescence

This week has been a much-needed catch up week at the lab. Sean and I are only together at the lab for a few hours weekly, and are working on separate parts of the project, so sometimes one of us gets ahead of the other and we need to help the other out. This was one of those weeks where our samples were backlogged so we took the time to plan out how to get back on track.

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Sean and I have noticed an overwhelming number of nematodes belonging to a specific genus, poorly photographed here, which visually represents the need for fluorescence microscopy. This genus is characterized by dark spots or pockets of dark color that run from head to tail in sometimes non-uniform ways. These dark spots resemble pockets of food throughout the digestive tract, and are similar in color to the microplastics we used for the feeding experiment. Although Sean and I are looking at these nematodes under low magnification, there is still a high likelihood that under higher magnification these spots are mistaken for ingested microplastics. Therefore, our use of fluorescence microscopy will be valuable to differentiate genus-specific morphological characteristics from ingested microplastics. Since we know the wavelength the microplastics fluoresce at, we will be able to use specific wavelengths of light to determine if the nematodes ate any of the microplastics and how many microplastics they ingested. While I haven't use fluorescence microscopy on any of the samples yet, I designed this experiment with fluorescent microplastics in mind as a way to concretely visualize microplastic ingestion by these nematodes. The prominence of the genus pictured above just affirms that I made the right decision in planning.

Next week is just before halloween, and while I've spent time on some of the spookiest parts of nematode physiology, I think I will try and find other spooky members and highlight why I think that human-sized meiofauna would make for scary movie creatures. Stay tuned!

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