{"id":5865,"date":"2018-05-01T16:08:42","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T21:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/ela\/?p=5865"},"modified":"2023-09-25T14:12:28","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T19:12:28","slug":"things-iisd-ela-making-zooplankton-net","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/ela\/blog\/things-iisd-ela-making-zooplankton-net\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Do Things at IISD-ELA: Making a zooplankton net"},"content":{"rendered":"

So much of the research we do at IISD Experimental Lakes Area is unique and specific to us. It often, therefore, requires equipment that is specialized in terms of function, size and number.<\/p>\n

There is a strong tradition of our researchers developing and making their own equipment tailored for purpose. In fact, two key researchers in the 50-year history of IISD-ELA got their hands dirty and made the trap nets<\/a> that we still use to this day!<\/p>\n

And we are not alone. You might assume that all researchers simply buy their equipment online, but making equipment specific to your research is a practice common to many scientific research institutions.<\/p>\n

Lee Hrenchuk, for example, is already a superstar seamstress<\/a>\u00a0and has just taken over the task of creating zooplankton nets to track the abundance and species of zooplankton found in our lakes from Doug Allan, who had done it for many years. They were made with material suited specifically for the size of zooplankton we want to track, and for the size of our equipment and lakes.<\/p>\n

Tracking zooplankton is a crucial part of our Long-Term Ecological Research<\/a> datasets\u00a0and is also often tracked before and after major experiments to see what impact our manipulation has had on the zooplankton populations.<\/p>\n

Allow Lee to guide you through the process…<\/p>\n

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“First I use a rubber template to get the exact size of net we need. We use a type of fabric called Nitex which has the specific mesh size we need to capture\u00a0the zooplankton we want to track. Nitex is quite pricey, so I am sure to waste as little as possible when measuring it out.”<\/em><\/p>\n