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Kelly Stettner posted an update in the group Researchers 8 years, 7 months ago
I’m working on sampling the meiofauna in the hyporheic zone near a contaminated river bank in southeastern Vermont. These are the microscopic critters that live in the water that is in-between grains of substrate under the bed of the river…where groundwater wells up into the river. Tried using colonization tubes last year, with no luck. Going to attempt a push-point sampler with a 600 micron screen to see if we can suction out any creatures (hopefully we can get critters in the 50-microns-or-less range) to catalog under my microscope.
Still working on this…I now have a compound ‘scope to look for creatures, but all I’m finding so far is tiny rock crystals. Am I not digging deeply enough? The push-point can only penetrate an inch or so down…not the 6″ that I’ve seen mentioned. The river bottom is VERY rocky, I don’t really see a way to get deeper than an inch or two.