Expertise

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

 

Université du Québec à Chicoutimi