Bryozoans + Sletvik = A good time
One of the highlights of the year for the NorDigBryo project was the workshop at Sletvik field station 14-18 October. Here both students, technicians and researchers met to work with (and discuss) bryozoans! The Natural History Museum in Oslo, the University Museum in Bergen, the NTNU University Museum were all represented together with Joanne Porter, our international bryozoan expert from Heriot Watt University, Orkney Campus.
Sletvik is located along the coast of central Norway approx. an hour and a half from Trondheim by car, and is surrounded by beautiful natural surroundings!
Photo: Mali Ramsfjell, 2021
On Monday everyone had arrived at the field station around noon, so then the work began in earnest! We had some aims for the week that we worked hard to achieve:
- Find and register invasive species
- Have an extra focus on bryozoans belonging to the order Cyclostomatida, since our Master's student Maria works with this group.
- Pick out samples for DNA-sequencing and genome skimming.
- Have some time for some field work at the local marinas.
- Increase the number of bryozoan registrations for our project.
Some fieldwork, exciting findings and progress!
The Bergen people had collected several samples from ports and marinas during their roadtrip to Sletvik, so on the first day we looked for invasive species from the material collected in Stranda, Molde and Kristiansund. Did we find any? We definitely did! We found, among other species, Tricellaria inopinata, which is believed to be native to the northern Pacific Ocean1, and is a species that has spread rapidly along the Norwegian coast.
We also got some time for fieldwork, so we visited a couple of local marinas to look for the invasive bryozoans. Some people (mostly Cessa and Jon) went snorkeling to look for interesting stuff in Straumen (which is located very close to Sletvik).
We spent many hours in the lab where we identified the bryozoans, registered them in a spreadsheet and selected individual colonies for DNA sequencing (barcoding). During the workshop we found a lot of (exciting) species and we have been able to add close to 500 new registrations which will hopefully soon appear on Artskart and GBIF. I think that's pretty impressive! As for the barcoding, we finished almost two plates of samples, one of which will be sent to NorBol for DNA sequencing, while the other will be genome skimmed, which is a slightly different process.
Mali (me) has also brought a bunch of samples back to NHM Oslo that will be photographed with our scanning electron microscope. We will try to post some of those pictures here eventually, because there's bound to be cool stuff in there! More detailed results from this week will also be posted eventually.
We are thankful for an awesome week at Sletvik, and we are already looking forward to the next workshop (which could happen as early as February)!
References:
1Husa V, Agnalt A-L, Falkenhaug T, Glenner H, Jelmert A og Mortensen S (2023). Ectoprocta: Vurdering av Tricellaria inopinata for Fastlands-Norge med havområder. Fremmedartslista 2023. Artsdatabanken. http://www.artsdatabanken.no/lister/fremmedartslista/2023/1719. Nedlastet 25.10.2024
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Author: Mali H. Ramsfjell