As we prepare our incubations, we consider our options for a site for deployment. It has been recently noted in literature that island series' act as hot spots for plastic accumulation, making the Bocas del Toro Research Station a great location to conduct this work. What luck to have this platform only 50m from our dock here at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. This platform has many of the latest and greatest sensors attached that monitor several parameters every five minutes such as water temperature, salinity, pH, chlorophyll fluorescence, dissolved oxygen...this list goes on! We've been given permission to set up our in situ incubations off this platform, and the data that inherently comes with this spot are sure to enhance our work (and the view isn't too bad either). May such fortune continue to smile upon us. :)
Hello! My name is Kassandra Dudek and I'm a PhD student at Arizona State University studying environmental life science. The environment of interest is no big deal and only covers 71% of our planet, contains 97% of our water, and 99% of living space, and that is of course the ocean (Yes, I study the ocean while living in the desert). I, along with my lab mate, good friend, and sanity supervisor Bianca Cruz, will be traveling to Bocas del Toro, Panama to study microplastics, and our tears journey shall be documented here. So a little backstory... Microplastics, plastic particles smaller than 5 mm, are emerging marine pollutants. Because of their abundance in almost every marine habitat around the globe and their long residence time, it is of significance to understand their impact on marine habitats and the life that resides there. Microplastics are readily ingested by high-level marine biota and can also serve as a pelagic habitat for microorganisms, p...
So, we made it to Bocas del Toro, Panamá! And so did all of our equipment and supplies. Hola Bocas! And now starts our two-month adventure filled with dives/snorkeling to set up our in-situ incubations and sampling, DNA prep, microscopy, and horrible quotes/inside jokes. Oh man, such hard work.
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