So,
now it’s day five. (04/15/18) We lost power at the Daytona Campus on April 12th
for the entire day. Though I looked in all four tanks twice by that time never
finding specimens to identify except in the High Bridge sample natural site
from
Ormond Beach.
The
salinity of (a) High Bridge is 30ppt (b) Daytona Beach 26ppt
(c)
NSB 37 ppt and (d) Canaveral 38 ppt. Obviously
this is not something I expected and leaves me concerning the simple effects of
organisms that will change due to these salinity differences.
I
looked again on the 13th with the same result. Each time I pull from
High Bridge a new species emerges that sparks my interest again, but the other
tans appear to be void of life. All the
tanks have fibrous colored debris of plastics.
This
covers the good and the bad, the faulty lies with the process I chose to
collect them. I should’ve delved deeper into methods to collect my samples and
might have discovered I needed to use a plankton tow method; although, I am not
sure how I would’ve pulled it off for all four sites.
I
believe I have actually identified one of my plankton as a Nitzschia, a type of
Diatom, and the individual a sigmoidea.
Admittedly, I cannot make a precise classification without proper
magnification and that adds to my frustration.
Here are two more I am still searching for: The
first is a Crustacean and the next I believe Cnidarian
Plant food was added just prior to power going out, algae has began to accumulate at the bottom of all four tanks.Alas, I will continue this process hoping for some findings within the other tanks in time. I was informed a study is being conducted by
Bethune Cookman Univ. and
perhaps I can find out more on Monday.
In
the meantime I have a few pics, most appear blurred because my catches never
stay still nor slow down.
Interesting. Yes--we usually do a plankton tow for this type of research. However, it would have been unrealistic for us to take the boat to 4 different locations to do this. SO--we are simply cultivating plankton in the lab in an attempt to increase their concentration--similar to a plankton tow. Cultivating plankton in the lab is a common practice for study since tows are time and money consuming.
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