Posts Tagged ‘benthic diatoms’

Early succession – diatoms, shrimp and fish

October 26, 2012

On 10 October 2012, B block marine scientists went down to the Pearson College dock and checked on the substrates that they had suspended in the water on 7 September 2012.

After a month there have been some changes:

 September

A bleach bottle is now covered in benthic diatoms:

 October

So is the piece of cinder block:

 SeptemberOctober

And a glass jar:

 

September

October

The “Kraken” bottle is covered in diatoms too:

September

October

And it is home to at least one dock shrimp:

 

 

 

The tire also housed several shrimp (the photos didn’t turn out though, sorry!)

 

 

And the substrate below…

 

 

…had a crescent gunnel living between the bottle and the mesh covering.

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More mud

September 19, 2012

In case you weren’t able to identify the one student that we almost lost in the mudflats, here he is getting stuck deeper and deeper in the mud…

And here is Chris unstuck (and bootless!)…

Below are a few images from a light microscope (100x magnification) of mud samples taken at the surface of the mudflat:

Note the benthic diatoms – a few were still alive and would have been living on the surface of the mudflat, but most are just the empty frustules (glass cases).

And samples from about 25 cm deep in the mudflat:

Similar sized particles but no diatoms to be seen in the deep samples.

 

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