FlowCam - Flow Imaging Microscopy Blog

It's hard to imagine a more picturesque location from which to perform one's research than Sanibel Island, Florida. However, as can be seen in the picture at the right, our most beautiful places are not exempt from the effects of climate change. Pictured here is what is commonly known as "red tide", but to Dr. Eric Milbrandt and the researchers at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) is known to be an algal bloom caused by the phytoplankton Karenina brevis.

For six days every spring, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences hosts 16 high school students (one from each Maine county) in East Boothbay, Maine, as part of the Keller BLOOM educational program. Students get a chance to work alongside research scientists studying marine life in the field and in the laboratory.

In recent years, Bigelow has expanded the BLOOM program to include a second session in August - this time for Middle and High School educators.

Every summer since 2015 scientists from around the country have come to Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine to be trained in harmful algae taxonomy and identification. This training course project is part of NOAA NCCOS’s Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Blooms (MERHAB) program and is lead by Dr. Michael Lomas.  Bigelow provides the theoretical and hands-on training to our next generation of HAB scientists so that they have the proper tools to effectively and accurately identify HAB species.

Pictured here: phyto- and zooplankton imaged by the FlowCam off the Maine coast

Yesterday Heather Anne Wright and I were invited to join the Friends of Casco Bay on a mission to track down and capture samples of the algae bloom taking place in Casco Bay.  Mike Doan skippered the Baykeeper, while Will Everitt and Ivy Fignoca accompanied the group this afternoon on a ride out to Chebeague Island.

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.