The Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) was deployed in Monterey Bay on October 3, 2002, 24 hours after this survey and recovered October 10.
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The position and depth of the ESP is shown below as the blue dot under the yellow triangle. This provides some context for characterizing the environment into which the ESP was deployed. Chlorophyll was swept out of the bay September 27-30 by a low-salinity mesoscale filament that originated from the north. This is a very interesting story - stay tuned for more on that later from the Ryan lab. Chlorophyll remained relatively low through early October.
For
our deployment in Monterey Bay, 2002, we used two different types of
DNA probe arrays.The HAB (harmful algae bloom) arrays had probes for
several different species of harmful and toxic phytoplankton. We use
these to look for multiple harmful species simultaneously in the same
sample. The SSU (small subunit rNA) arrays had probes that target universally
conserved sequences (all organisms), all barnacles (general, group-specific),
a specific species of barnacle, and pennate diatoms (general, group
-specific). The arrays shown below illustrate tests to assess
specificity of a universal probe (U519), the generic barnacle probe
(B1066) and the barnacle species-specific probe (B915). When one of
these arrays is treated with extracts from the particular species of
barnacle targeted, all the spots light up (B915, B1066, U519). When
one of these arrays is treated with extracts from a barnacle other than
the specific species targeted, only the B1066 and U519 spots light up
as expected.
