Bins, Boxes, and Buckets Oh My!

My name is Gabby Holm and I am a biology undergraduate at St. Catherine University. The past year I’ve been working to detect cyanotoxins with samples collected by Annette Benson Devine, who is a recent St.Kate's graduate that worked on the project last year. I am super excited to be in Iceland this year doing similar (and some new) work in Myvatn. This lake is very special because balls of green algae (called marimo in Japanese) form on the bottom of the lake.  The balls are comprised of Cladophora spp. along with a few other species that colonize the filaments of algae as it grows. 

Marimo green algae ball from Myvatn

However, there are also blooms of planktonic algae and in recent years, blooms of Anabaena have occurred, including this year - in fact, right at this moment! Our main goal is to measure the amount of nitrogen that is being fixed or brought into the lake from the atmosphere by this and other cyanobacteria. I will also continue my work on cyanotoxins and have the opportunity to collect samples of the Anabaena and other cyanobacteria and analyze them for a range of potential toxins.  This is important, as only some cyanobacteria produce toxins and little is known about the species found in Myvatn.  In order to do this work, we need a lot of equipment...

Microscope image of Anabaena 

Our supplies are kept at the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute in Reykjavik. Three giant pallets were taken off the shelf, and we had to look through everything.  Then, it was time to pack bins. This is the part of the trip where we get to find out how good we are at playing Tetris. I learned that Sarah was much better than me. I like to just squish supplies into bins, while Sarah actually organized the gear.

Equipment at the warehouse 

Since we needed a little bit of everything, including a gas chromatograph (which we use to measure nitrogen fixation), there was a lot of equipment. We ended up with 8 full bins. All of the bins were named by previous students and this makes each bin feel special. Bin Stitch I think must have anger issues because his lid will refuse to close. REX was taken out to the field everyday last year and so it has a special place in my heart. 

Bin REX and Batman

All of the bins were taken to the shipping company, and it was a great success that everything fit onto one pallet. They were then wrapped up, and in only two days they arrived in Myvatn.   Now we are ready to go!!

Bins at the shipping company