Flow Imaging Microscopy Blog

Earlier this month, Harry Nelson traveled to Kuwait to train employees of KISR (Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research) on their new FlowCam Macro, and their 2012 FlowCam VS4. Dr. Rakhesh Madhusoodhanan and his colleagues at the Oceanography Research Group are very excited to expand their research with the use of their new FlowCam. 

Will you be at the National Marine Educators Association Conference in Durham, NH next week? Stop by our booth in the Strafford Room to see our new FlowCam 5000 in action!  Bring a sample to be analyzed in the booth and see the streamlined efficiency of our new instrument.

In 2018, a research study was performed by our customers, Dauphin Island Sea Lab, using oyster larvae from the Mobile Bay - Mississippi Sound system off the coast of Alabama. There have been concerted efforts to reestablish a flourishing population of oysters and oyster reefs in this area, in order to protect the shoreline and to save the population from rapid decline. An important piece of this puzzle is the ability to track larval transport (the movement of oyster larvae from birth to adult settlements), and this study's aim was to establish a method of tracking these larvae.

In the Austral Summer of 2018-2019 a Norwegian research group aboard the RV Kronprins Haakon, an ice-breaking polar research vessel, traveled to the Antarctic on a research mission with two objectives: 1) to update the estimate of biomass and distribution of krill off the coast of West Antarctica and 2) to become educated on the marine environment in this area for the purpose of implementing a Feed-Back Management (FBM) system, allowing fishery managers to set catch limits based on current ecosystem health.

A Maine Sea Grant has just been awarded to Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science to study the effects on the lobster, one of Maine's most economically and commercially important resources. The ubiquity of marine microplastics is becoming well known. However, the impact of microplastics on ocean life remains poorly understood. 

How do you analyze algae populations? Algae analysis is simplified using the FlowCam^®'s image analysis software VisualSpreadsheet^®. While manual identification may still be required for taxonomic purposes, algae identification and population analysis can be achieved with little effort using this system. 

When I started at Fluid Imaging Technologies one of the draws of the position was that I would get to see the world. In supporting our customers, I have done exactly that. Recently I was able to spend a significant time abroad traveling to Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and India. I had the opportunity to work with scientists in a variety of industrial and research applications to ensure that their instrument and methodology were optimized for their needs.

Our ability to predict and prevent harmful algal blooms is directly related to our ability to study and understand cyanobacteria.  Numerous studies have used the FlowCam to rapidly enumerate, image, and aid in the identification of harmful algae present in water samples to better track, trend and predict blooms. We've collected our favorite studies on cyanobacteria into one document that features synopses of the following papers:

The FlowCam was born from a dream to develop a faster flow cytometer for marine phytoplankton research. In the mid-1990s, the best method for analyzing phytoplankton was using optical microscopy or a slow flow cytometer that could only analyze a limited size range. By 1997, a few scientists from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science had developed the first FlowCam prototype and debuted it at the ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Today, 22 years later, the FlowCam has been used in over 230 aquatic science peer-reviewed publications. We've summarized our Top 4 recently published FlowCam for Marine Research Papers into one document.  The following papers are featured:

Paleolimnologists study the diatoms, foraminifera, and other microfossils within sediment cores to reconstruct paleoenvironments and understand how they have changed over time. 

Diatoms are among the most common types of phytoplankton, and originated more than 200 million years ago.  They are commonly monitored when studying water quality, both past and present, because of their sensitivity to a variety of ecological conditions.