Gulf of Eilat Plankton Tow

The water in the mesocosm experiments will require a much higher zooplankton concentration than that of ambient seawater. We need a to feed a lot of copepods in order to collect enough fecal pellets for analysis. So how do we acquire all these copepods? By catching them in a plankton net, of course!

Diagram of a plankton net.

Zooplankton are very small. To catch them, we deploy a piece of scientific equipment called a plankton net. Water can pass through the tiny holes in the plankton nets, but copepods do not. The net is towed behind the boat for an extended period (usually about ten minutes). After each tow, the contents of the collection bottle is transferred to a storage container. We do this around ten times to get enough zooplankton for the experiment.

Eyal preparing to drop the plankton net into the Gulf of Eilat for the first tow of the day.

Michele pulling the net back to the boat after it has towed underwater for ten minutes.

Eyal pulling the collection bottle out of the water after a tow while Emmanuel observes.

The results of one tow. Check out all those copepods!

It's pretty hot out on the boat, so we store the zooplankton in a cooler with ice to keep them happy before bringing them to shore. 

Stay tuned to see the next destination of these travelling copepods: the mesocosms!