Closing workshop for hyperbenthic copepods (HYPCOP)

Over the last week of September, HYPCOP organized its final and essential workshop for ending the mission. We invited worldwide collaborators Prof. Dr. Rony Huys and Dr. Alexandra Savchenko from the Pure Historical past Museum in London. Prof. Dr. Huys is a widely known copepod taxonomist and crustacean researcher and printed a mess of species descriptions and books together with key identification guides. We had been very blissful to listen to he had time to come back and journey to Bergen, paying us a go to whereas additionally serving to us with species identifications of the numerous, many copepods we had collected throughout the two years of our mission.

 

In the course of the two years of the HYPCOP mission we collected round 600 specimens from completely different localities throughout Norway, together with shallow coastal waters and the deeper elements of the mid-Atlantic Ridge (Loki’s Citadel area of lively hydrothermal vents). From all these specimens we extracted DNA from the gentle tissue of the animal. Subsequently, conserving the arduous exoskeletons, for morphological identification downstream. That is probably the most time consuming and difficult half. The species can generally solely be recognized primarily based on minuscule variations within the look of its legs. In addition to, one wants good taxonomic competence to assign these variations to the 1000’s of marine benthic copepods species. And that is the place the HYPCOP group wanted assist.

HYPCOP began in Might 2020, when numerous nations, together with Norway, had been in a lockdown and worldwide journey was troublesome and even unimaginable. Subsequently, it was problematic for HYPCOP to ask worldwide researchers for more often than not. Thus, we targeted totally on extracting DNA from our collected specimens and build up a barcode library. However what was lacking was the nomenclature of the majority of the specimens. When lastly, our first worldwide researchers might come and take a look at our specimens, it turned out to be an unlimited activity. With the assistance of Prof. Dr. Huys and Dr. Savchenko we managed now to have virtually 300 assigned names to our DNA library of 500 specimens. Fairly a couple of of these are new species and even new genera.

Rony and Alexandra arrived Sunday night in Bergen along with mission chief Tone Falkenhaug and mission technician Cessa. We had been stationed on the Espegrend marine organic station in Bergen for the whole thing of the week. It was for Tone and Cessa the primary time they’d lastly meet Rony and Alexandra in particular person, after many months of digital communication. It was a pleasant enjoyable first night. The following day Anders Hobæk from NIVA and Jon Kongsrud from the UiB joined and we began off the week with a presentation overview of the mission.

The overview knowledgeable everybody about this system of the week and the cutting-edge of the mission. With the DNA barcode library, we managed to assemble a COI phylogenetic tree. A number of the bigger clades had been already recognized right down to species stage, however many extra species names had been lacking from the smaller clades. It was as much as us that week along with Rony and Alexandra to establish these final circumstances.

We additionally had at some point of fieldwork deliberate, to have us work additionally with some contemporary materials. This we did with assist of analysis vessel Emiliana and the Beyer’s sled. Each stationed at Espegrend Marine Organic station. We tried to select a pleasant and dry day for going out with the boat and that occurred to be within the mid of the week. We went a bit bit outdoors of the Organic Station, with a depth of round 90 – 120m. The Beyer’s sled is an epibenthic sampler, it’s known as a sled for its type. We obtained many contemporary samples, however due the web being a bit massive in its mesh dimension, we didn’t get as many small species as we preferred.

 

Subsequently, we additionally tried one other sampling methodology with assist of Anders; he had introduced with him a lightweight lure. Gentle traps are very straightforward to DIY with a bottle and inverted bottle opening, like a funnel, and a small led mild on the underside. You put in the lure within the water in a single day; the little led mild attracts numerous small hyperbenthic and planktonic (and a few larger) species.

The whole lot of the week consisted of many hours working on the microscope, going by literature, dissecting specimens, and assigning species names to the specimens. Ultimately with assist of Rony and Alexandra, we managed to assign 298 scientific names to 702 specimens in our assortment. From these specimens, we extracted DNA from 593 specimens and produced a DNA library, which we uploaded to the BOLDSYSTEMS (Barcode of Life Information System). This library additionally has all of the metadata of our specimens, similar to location, depth, dimension, and footage of the specimens (both life, mounted and in some circumstances elements). And it will likely be publicly obtainable on the finish of the HYPCOP mission.

The week was demanding however very rewarding and we obtained many specimens recognized, with even a couple of new species and genera to Norway and presumably new to science; all due to the arduous work and assist of Rony and Alexandra. We subsequently additionally want to take this chance to thank them once more for his or her time and efforts in serving to the HYPCOP mission transfer ahead! Till subsequent time.

– Cessa