 |
 |
Hi Gabrielle. About 10 years ago, Per Flood and I discovered that ink from the cuttlefish, Sepia officianalis, made very nice stains of appendicularian houses for macrophotography and videography. A dilute solution of the real thing collected from a living cuttlefish worked the best, but you can also make up an solution (or more precisely probably, a suspension) of ink micro-particles from dried ink purchased from a supply house. We published the method in Biological Bulletin and the fact that the appendicularians actually ingested the ink particles in Nature. Anyway, perhaps you might want to give Sepia ink a try for your larvae. Let me know of your progress. As an aside, a group of us here have just submitted a proposal to work on natural limits to productivity of Newfoundland mussel farms. One of the limits is ascidian biofouling. So, if we are funded next spring, we will be studying ascidians at a couple of Newfoundland mussel farms. Don Deibel At 02:45 PM 06/11/02 +0000, you wrote: >hello tunicata list, i'm a new subscriber. > >In response to the invitation my name is gabrielle prendergast and i am >studying a phd in marine invertebrate larval behaviour in relation to >hydrodynamics and surface texture (e.g. boundary layer flrows, Reynolds >numbers etc.) >I'm going to be looking at larvae of several fouling species like bryozoans, >barnacles, sponges, molluscs etc but i'm trying to focus mostly on the >tunicates. > >i will be collecting my own samples of Ciona intestinalis, maybe also some >Corellidae and Botryllus schlosseri. As i need larvae i would be most >grateful if anyone has information on rearing these guys in my laboratory >aquaria? > >I'm going to be filming their behaviour but i'm led to believe that their >larvae are transparent, which presents some technical difficulties! >ideas include staining them (but of course the control would have to be >unstained so i'll still need to be able to film those ones), staining their >food (but are they lecithotrophic?), UV light, optical backscatter stuff etc. >any ideas anyone? > >in the future i'll be setting up a web page of my work - maybe i can put a >link to it on this website? > >thankyou >gabrielle > >Gabrielle S. Prendergast >room 447 Ridley Building >University of Newcastle upon Tyne > >tel: (office hours) 0191 222 5512 Don Deibel Ocean Sciences Centre Memorial University St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador Canada A1C 5S7 709-737-3241 709-737-3220 (Fax)