Mini-workshop June 17

Earlier this week we had a relatively spontaneous mini-workshop here at the Natural History Museum in Oslo. We were visited by Jonas from the Institute of Marine Research! He is interested in identifying the most common bryozoans they come across when they are out in the field, and contacted us to see if there were any opportunities for collaboration!

A photo of a man in a lab room looking at bryozoans under a stereo microscope and a woman next to him looking down at some bryozoan literature
Here we have Jonas looking at the bryozoans under a stereo microscope while our summer student Lily is going through some bryozoan literature. Photo: Mali Ramsfjell

There was indeed an opportunity for collaboration! The more people who know about bryozoans the better (not biased at all *cough*). We quickly planned a mini-workshop which was held on Monday June 17. Jonas had brought a couple of samples that we could look at where we found both cheilostome and cyclostome bryozoans! We managed to identify a couple of species like Crisia eburnea, Crisidia cornuta, Bicellariella ciliata and Schizomavella linearis.

A photo taken through a stereo microscope showing the cyclostome bryozoan Crisidia cornuta
A bryozoan colony belonging to the species Crisidia cornuta which is a cyclostomtid bryozoa. Photo: Mali Ramsfjell

In addition to Jonas, the summer student Lily also took part in the workshop. Two PhD students and a postdoc also participated at some point during the day. Lily tried her hand at the difficult task of using an key to identify some bryozoans! When you identify organisms, you often use a certain tool to distinguish the different families, genera and species from each other, and this tool is called an identification key.

Photo of an opened book about bryozoa, showing scanning electron microscope photos of the genus Microporella
One of the books that we use a lot when identifying bryozoans in Norwegian waters. The SEMs in the book show the genus Microporella. Photo: Mali Ramsfjell

All in all, I think we can consider this mini workshop a success! In addition to this more spontaneous event, we are also planning a bigger workshop at Sletvik field station in October with international experts present.

Published June 21, 2024 10:19 AM - Last modified June 21, 2024 11:19 AM
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