benthic invertebrates – Environmental Barcoding of Aquatic Invertebrates (EBAI)

Field work in Rondane July 2016

Torbjørn Ekrem19. August 201619. August 2016Leave a comment

The Nedre Dørålseter cabin next to the Rondane National Park in Central Norway. Not a bad place to do field work on a day like this!

In year two of field work for the EBAI-project, we have focused on eDNA and benthic samples at three different stations along the River Atna. By filtering water and analysing DNA from bulk extractions, we want to see how different the diversity of freshwater invertebrates is between stations and if both methods retrieve the same species. As usual, we filtered our water in the field and fixed our 4 min kick samples on ethanol.

Torbjørn sampling water in sterile PET bottles. Will one liter of river water reveal the diversity of macroinvertebrates living here?

Markus filtering water in our mobile lab (click here to see a video). Hikers passing were looked suspiciously and probably wondered what kind of dangerous stuff we were doing.

Elisabeth fixing kick-samples of benthic invertebrates. See here for a video of the actual kicksamplin g.

The second field-sampling trip in EBAI was directed to the Lake Jonsvatn on September 28. We sampled a depth gradient (0.25 m, 2 m, 7.5 m and 15 m) for benthic invertebrates starting from Trondhjems Roklub, and eDNA from water from the Roklub pier. Also, adult flying insects were sampled with a net. Weather conditions were perfect during the second successful field trip, and in addition to the samples, we got nice pictures including the spectacular panorama photo on top of the page.

EBAI-Jonsvatn-28sep15-vannp — Erik is sampling water from the pier. Photo: Torbjørn Ekrem.

EBAI-Jonsvatn-28sep15-brude — Relaxing day in the field (at least for some of us). Photo: Elisabeth Stur.

EBAI-Jonsvatn-28sep15-kapte — Captain Hårsaker leaving the field site (we'll be back). Photo: Torbjørn Ekrem.

Field filtering requires some patience. Photo: Elisabeth Stur.

EBAI-Jonsvatn-28sep15-Marku — Captain Hårsaker leaving the field site (we'll be back). Photo: Torbjørn Ekrem.

Field filtering requires some patience. Photo: Elisabeth Stur.

Field work in Rondane

Torbjørn Ekrem22. October 201522. October 2015Leave a comment

The first field trip in EBAI was held August 10-11 and went to the Atna watershed and the Rondane Mountains. Three stations, Vollen, Dørålseter and Skranglehaugan, were sampled for benthic invertebrates while eDNA from water was sampled at Dørålseter. We also got to test our mobile water filtering setup for the first time. Very successful!