Last week, the MulitKulti-team from Oldenburg was out for sampling the North Sea. Five stations around the island of Spiekeroog were sampled with the research boat Zephyr of the Institute of Biology and Chemistry of the Marine Environment (ICBM). With the help of a CTD Rossette equipped with different sensors, samples could be taken at different depths (0-10 m) and profiles for temperature, salinity, density, fluorescence and oxygen content were recorded simultaneously. The temperature of the North Sea water in November was around 6.5°C to 9°C and the oxygen content remained constant over the first 10 m at ~9.5 mg/l.
In the laboratory, the samples were then fixed and prepared for different analyses. Thus, the nutrient content, the concentration of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) as well as total cell counts will be determined. However, the focus of the project is on the investigation of the abundance of Marine Group II (MGII), an uncultured group within the Euryarchaeota. For this purpose, samples were filtered to quantify MGII by CARD-FISH and also to extract DNA for molecular analyses. Currently, all collected samples are analyzed within the framework of a research project and a master thesis. Since samples at the same locations were already taken in July and Sempember, the results can be compared over the course of the year.
We would like to thank Helmo Nikolai and Claudia Thölen for their great support during sampling!
