Last week undergraduate students from the school of Life Scieneces helped out Jo Clarke and Sofie Spatharis on the Aquatic Ecology, Marine Biology Field Course in Millport.

 

They went on the FSC Millport research boat called Actinia where they trawled (minimal trawling to decrease ecological impact - cut by a third) for megafauna identification as well as sampling for phytoplankton/zooplankton with nets and Niskin bottles, and then identified them in the lab and performed chlorophyll analysis. This year the group also tried out a camera trap to look for megafauna where they dropped a camera to the benthos and left for 30 min periods at a time with each group.
The students were also shown different sampling methods and how to do biodiversity analyses by going out to the rocky shore and sandy shore to collect different organisms. The tutors also included a sea bird survey to monitor oystercatcher behaviour. And finally, on the last day everyone went out for a marine litter beach clean up and a sort of marine litter survey that they sorted into different categories and looked for micro plastics.

 

First published: 4 November 2019

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