During the first week, I found out that I will not only be working on lipid accumulation in
Noctiluca scintillans, but will also be measuring chlorophyll, ammonia concentrations, respiration rates, and growth rates. I also met my mentor Anxhela who is currently a student at Boston College and together we are working on a series of grazing experiments by incorporating four different species of prey. Our group did a lot of pre-experiment planning with the help of our PI's and that was a bit of a struggle since there were no previous studies conducted on this particular topic (see image 1).
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| Image 1: The Plan (so far) |
Our experiment contains a total of eighty-eight samples, so it's been a bit tedious extracting each individual cell and placing it into the correct media. We have begun extractions this week and have been micro pipetting fifty cells into each bottle of media. This past week, my mentor and I measured the ammonia concentrations in the media solution as a sort of baseline number and we plotted our results (see image 2). Ammonia is one of the components that we will be measuring within to the
Noctiluca to determine feeding rates and the prey-predator ratios. Additionally, we also received 3-D solution mixers in order for the prey and
Noctiluca solutions to be immersed consistently. Since
Noctiluca have a tendency to separate and float to the surface of the solution, these mixers were a critical step! However, one of them arrived broken so we spent about three hours trying to fix the motor. I remember my PI saying, "I'm actually glad you guys are going through this. It's sort of like the real world." After fixing the mixer and placing both into the incubators, the group conducted a series of light tests (see image 3) in specific areas of the incubators to determine a proper arrangement (image 4) for the media bottles so that all of the samples are receiving approximately the same amount of light. Overall, the first week and a half was a bit of a slow start, since many of the key instruments were still being shipped to the lab. However, I am glad that the experiment finally got started and I will be updating sometime next week on our results and progress!
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| Image 2: Ammonia Standard Curves |
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| Image 3: A brand new photometer for light tests |
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| Inside the incubator, a Noctiluca stock culture |
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| Image 4: The media bottle samples on the 3-D mixer, in rotation |
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