The start of the project (and a trip to Bergen)
The NorDigBryo project is now officially underway! Together with our partners in Bergen (The University Museum in Bergen) and Trondheim (NTNU University Museum), we will map bryozoan species that have been collected along the Norwegian coast!
The early stages of the project
So what has happened since we started up the project (which happened to be in April)? Well, we have borrowed bryozoan samples from the University Museum in Bergen (many thanks to Katrine and Jon!) for processing. Processing involves the sorting of material, identifying species and photographing the ones we find.
After going through the samples from Bergen, we have already received a rather long list of species that we have been able to identify, and many have been photographed with a scanning electron microscope. This makes species identification easier, since some of the characteristic features of the bryozoans can be so small that you actually need an electron microscope to see them.
A week in Bergen
We agreed that Mali/I should come to Bergen in November to deliver fully processed samples and bring more material back to Oslo! It was nice that the train tickets were actually cheaper than plane tickets. It makes it more enjoyable to choose more climate- and environment-friendly means of transportation. Apart from some hours of delay on the "bus for train" replacement from Voss to Bergen (*cough* roads in the western part of Norway and accidents *cough*), the journey to and from Bergen went very smoothly.
Here is a brief summary of things we accomplished during this week:
- We have started posting things related to the project on social media (instagram)
- We sorted out new samples to bring back to Oslo for processing!
- Katrine has written a blog post about the project on the blog for the Invertebrate collections at the University Museum in Bergen.
- We have picked out some bryozoans for a master's student who will be working with a rather difficult order of Bryozoa (Cyclostomatida)
- Katrine and Jon have cataloged and curated the samples that have been identified and photographed.
- Jon has processed barcode data and uploaded it to BOLD (database for identification of species using DNA)
We finished the work on Friday and since the journey back home was on Sunday, Saturday could be used for museum visits, sightseeing and experiencing the Light Festival in central Bergen. So you could say it's been quite the productive week!
Some pictures from the trip:
