Field and lab equipment and analyses available in LASA

Fieldwork

• Research vessels Airboat, also known as a hydrocopter, model Kelirikko 420. A flat-bottomed vessel used in shallow areas or on ice where a standard inboard or outboard engine with a submerged propeller would not work, allowing sampling in shoulder seasons that have not been able to be sampled previously

Water column profiling

• RBR Concerto and YSI (6820 v2) for continuous measures at high resolution for depth, conductivity, temperature, oxygen and pH
• LiCor LI-192 underwater quantum sensor for measures of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). Lowering frame and reference sensor LI-190R
• PUV-2500 profiling radiometer, equipped for measuring immersed cosine irradiance at the 305, 313, 320, 340, 380, 395 nm, and PAR (400-700 nm) wavebands

Sampling water, plankton, benthos, sediment and fishes

• Material including Limnos, Kemmerer and Niskin water bottles, various sizes of plankton nets, sediment corers (gravity corers models Mini-Glew and Aquatic Instruments corer with a hammering device), fish nets

Laboratory analyses

Fatty acid analysis

• Polar and non-polar fatty acids analysis and quantification (gas chromatography with mass spectrometry)

Optical analyses of water

• Colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), PARAFAC analyses and pigment analyses of chlorophyll-a and bulk carotenoid pigments using combined spectrophotometric (Cary 100 Bio spectrophotometer) and spectrofluorometric (Cary Eclipse spectrofluorometer) analyses

Microscopy

• Bacteria and nanoflagellate counting, marine and freshwater organism identification (phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrates and fish (adults, juveniles and larvae), subfossil cladoceran identification and counting
• Microscopes including stereomicroscopes, Zeiss Axio Imager A2 with fluorescence optics and transmitted light microscope (up to 1000x (oil) magnification). Many of the microscopes are equipped with a digital camera to take sharp, high-quality publishing standard images
• Primary and secondary production in the field and labBacteria and primary (pelagic and submerged benthic) production using ³H and ¹⁴C radioisotopes and Tri Carb 2910 TR Scintillation counter

Intertidal, exposed benthic production using chambers

• Zooplankton secondary production using the rate of decay of the crustacean molting enzyme  chitobiase, as per spectrophotometric detection