Monthly Archives: November 2015

Guest Researchers: Kate

Collecting Magelona samples on my favourite sampling beach, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland. A beach known to many polychaetologists through the work of naturalist George Johnston.

Collecting Magelona samples on my favourite sampling beach, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland. A beach known to many polychaetologists through the work of naturalist George Johnston.

Earlier this month we had a visit from Kate Mortimer from Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. In her own words:

Magelonid polychaetes – Shovelhead worms

7th – 15th November

I have been specialising in the taxonomy of magelonid polychaetes for the last 15 years, particularly the investigation of species from Europe and the Indian Ocean. More recently I have been additionally studying the behaviour and functional morphology of this fascinating group.

 

 

 

Making drawings of specimens from the MIWA project back at the National Museum Wales, Cardiff.

Making drawings of specimens from the MIWA project back at the National Museum Wales, Cardiff.

Discussions with Jon Anders Kongsrud at the University Museum of Bergen (UMB) started at the International Polychaete Conference in Lecce 2010 about the MIWA-Project and the magelonid species off West Africa. I started work investigating the magelonid specimens from the MIWA-project back in 2013. Early investigation work suggested the possibility of up to 16 putative species from the samples, which potentially included several species new to science. So the work began, on the lengthy process of drawing, describing and imaging each individual species back at the National Museum Wales, in Cardiff.

 

 

Imaging a Magelona

Imaging a Magelona, this specimen has a distinct thoracic pigment band

Whilst work continued looking at the morphology of these specimens it was decided that it would be prudent to come to the University Museum of Bergen to look at additional magelonid specimens from further MIWA samples, in order to select samples for DNA sequencing. The week would further cement morphological descriptions and to search for additional material of the rarer species within samples. So in November I took the trip to Bergen, leaving a wet and windy Cardiff behind and arriving in an equally wet and windy city!

After a week in the lab, over 100 vials of specimens and over 800 specimens have been studied. A further four potential species have been identified and the material is now ready for tissue sampling and photographing before the material is sent off to Canada for sequencing.

Working in the lab

Working in the lab

Magelonid samples processed and identified, awaiting sequencing.

Magelonid samples processed and identified, awaiting sequencing.

It has been a successful week, and I am very much looking forward to comparing the results from the sequencing to the morphology of these animals. Meanwhile back in Cardiff, we have selected specimens of similar British species for comparison to the West African material and Norwegian species.

Many thanks to all at the Museum for making me feel so welcome in Bergen. I very much look forward to collaborating with you on this project and look forward to some fascinating and interesting results from the project.

Guest Researchers: Williams and Lloyd

Lloyd (left) and Williams.  (photo: Williams)

Lloyd (left) and Williams. (photo: Williams)

Goniada congoensis collected in Nigeria

Goniada congoensis collected in Nigeria

A Glycera africana collected from Ghana

A Glycera africana collected from Ghana

A Goniada multidentata from Ghana

A Goniada multidentata from Ghana

For the past two weeks we have had two old friends visiting to work on the material collected through the MIWA-project:

Lloyd from Ghana, who has previously been here to participate in the first of our workshops in the Espegrend field station, and Williams from Nigeria, who has been both on the Espegrend workshops and who also included a visit to the Museum as a guest researcher in combination with the workshop visit last summer.

This time around, the focus has been on Polychaetes from the suborder Glyceriformia, mainly within the families Glyceridae (bloodworms) and Goniadidae.

Our visitors have been working on identifying specimens from a variety of countries, and selecting specimens from the different (morpho)species so that we could proceed to start work on a plate of Glyceriform worms that will  be sent to Canada for sequencing.

We have gone through the whole process of identification, section, photographing, metadata assembly and the creation of accounts and projects in the BOLD database, where our sequences will be uploaded.

It will be very interesting to see the results!

Photographing and keeping records of the animals selected for barcoding

Photographing and keeping records of the animals selected for barcoding (photo: Williams)

Ready to take tissue samples to be sent to Canada for sequencing

Ready to take tissue samples to be sent to Canada for sequencing (photo: Williams)

 

Thank you for visiting, and for all your hard work!

Guest Researchers

IMGP0472The invertebrate collections are high in demand these days, and we have a string of visitors coming here to examine our material. They range from students just starting out to well established researchers – some are new to us, others are old friends returning.

Amongst the latter is São from the University of Aveiro, Portugal. She works with polychaetes in the family Nephtyidae, and came for a short visit in October. In her own words:

18-23 October: After an amazingly (for Bergen ☺) sunny Sunday, with a wonderful walk in the mountains, I had a very productive week looking through nephtyids from Western Africa.

More than 300 specimens were examined and ascribed to 13 putative species. The results were very exiting! Interesting distribution patterns and a couple of potentially new species for science. Now we are waiting for barcodes…                                                       -São

We have also had a Russian student visiting for two weeks earlier this fall. Polina worked on polychaetes in the family Onuphidae together with Nataliya, and will continue to work on some of the material that she examined. Currently we have visitors from Ghana and Nigeria, and that will be the next blog post – so stay tuned!