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| Figure 1. Culture of bacteria (Pseudomonas sp.??) on marine agar isolated from larval rearing tanks at OI. |
It’s been a while since my last post, but it’s been a busy few months. Though it's the kind of busy you don't realize until you sit down and catch your breath. It’s been a lot of fun spending my days in the lab working with everyone learning new things.
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| Figure 2. Sample of Parvocalanus nauplii on TCBS agar that was fed to yellow tang larvae. |
Since we are still observing relatively high mortality just past first feeding, my work at the Oceanic Institute is focused on bacterial population analysis and application of probiotics to our yellow tang larval rearing tanks. The first month of summer was spent looking at the growth of our live feeds with the addition of probiotics, which appear to have no effect on their survival or growth. This is great news for us! We’ve started to culture our copepods in probiotic-enriched water for larval rearing trials starting July!
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| Figure 3. Gel electrophoresis of 12 different bacteria isolated from systems at OI. |
In one of my first trials a bright pink bacteria was growing in the tanks. I was able to sample it and isolate it on marine agar. Hopefully in a week or so I will be able to sequence it and determine exactly what species is growing in our hatchery! The unanimous hypothesis is that it’s a Pseudomonas sp., so everyone is very excited to see if they are right! Bets have been placed.
I’m excited to continue larval rearing trials with the probiotics in July to see if they help us increase survival past first feeding! Fingers crossed!
Emma
