From the 13th to twentyth of October, we have been on fieldwork once more! This time the top vacation spot was Sletvik area station. Sletvik area station belongs to the Norwegian College of Science and Know-how in Trondheim (NTNU). The group of NorDigBryo (digitization of Norwegian Bryozoa) had organized a workshop there and group snail was invited to tag alongside for the chance to gather some snails across the space. So there the three of us traveled from Bergen up North; Jon and Katrine for the Bryozoan workshop and me for the Decrease Heterobranchia and Pyramidellidae challenge.
The journey from Bergen to Trondheim takes greater than 10 hours! For such a protracted journey we after all wanted to take a number of breaks all through the day. However with a bunch of biologists on the best way it was very tough to not pattern throughout these stops at any time when we had the chance (1).
1. Sampling on our method, along with Jon & Katrine visiting a number of harbors. Photograph: Cessa Rauch, UiB.
After a really lengthy day, we lastly arrived at our finish vacation spot; Sletvik area station. This may be our dwelling for the approaching week. The station has nice amenities with completely different laboratories, a cantina with 3 meals a day being served by the kitchen workers and sleeping amenities. There’s house for as much as 40 college students, so with simply 10 of us we had a ton of house (2).
2. The Sletvik area station from the Norwegian College of Science and Know-how in Trondheim (NTNU). Photograph: Cessa Rauch, UiB.
The Sletvik area station is positioned on the small peninsula known as Slettvik; surrounded by largely water makes it a wonderful location for marine associated fieldwork. Regardless of the comparatively small dimension of the peninsula, it has a stunning variety of completely different habitats; there are seagrass meadows, sea bottoms lined in encrusting coralline algae and attributable to sturdy tidal currents, a really vibrant and numerous marine life (3).
3. Sampling from land…or within the water! From completely different marine habitats! Photographs: Cessa Rauch, UiB.
Due to this fact, we used a number of days that week to gather recent materials from across the space: through the use of nets or arms both from land or whereas within the water snorkeling (4).
4. Snorkeling for samples in sturdy tidal present proper below the little bridge, with Jon and Cessa. Photograph Katrine Kongshavn, UiB.
The sturdy tidal currents are what loads of the Pyramidellid species completely love! Not the least as a result of it attracts excessive variety of their hosts that they parasite on (5). Locations with lot of present have giant inflow of vitamins and are effectively oxygenated which regularly ends in excessive variety, such because the well-known Saltstraumen space in Nordland. Due to this fact, it was straightforward to gather them because the snails have been so considerable.
5. Onerous to identify the small snails, right here Odostomia turrita (blue circle) crawling away from its host Serpullid worm (white with blue fringes). Photograph: Cessa Rauch, UiB.
Nevertheless it turned clear shortly that a number of species have been fairly dominant. The 4 most typical Pyramidellid species within the shallow tidal currents round Sletvik have been Odostomia turrita; Brachystomia scalaris; Spiralina spiralis and Parthenina intersincta (6). Though Pyramidellidae snails are sometimes very tough to establish, these fours exhibited very typical traits which made it considerably straightforward to call them to species stage (7).
6. 4 of the most typical species present in Sletvik: Left up; Odostomia turrita, left down; Brachystomia scalaris, proper up; Spiralina spiralis, proper down; Parthenina intersincta. Photograph: Cessa Rauch, UiB
7. Doodles of probably the most recognizable characters of various frequent species in Sletvik. Photograph: Cessa Rauch, UiB.
Nonetheless, we nonetheless will extract DNA from these animals to verify species, because it nonetheless can occur that we’re having snails which might be very related and may need been misidentified within the area. That’s the reason you will need to repair the collected snails in ethanol, so the tissue and DNA in it stays preserved. All collected materials will then return to the College Museum of Bergen to be additional used for microscopy, morphological evaluation, DNA extractions and finally turn out to be a part of the gathering of the museum.
After one week, with hours of sorting by collected materials, we managed to gather and establish 15 completely different species; probably the most to date of any fieldwork so we will say that Sletvik is really a snail heaven!
– Cessa