Sampling sharks and rays

The last few days have involved me finding as many samples as possible of the species of deep sea shark that we are interested in, subsampling them and packaging them up to take home. Although this may seem like an easy job, you have to be very careful when you are subsampling so as to avoid cross-contamination. Even the tiniest part of tissue sample could contaminate the DNA of another sample. This means sterilising equipment thoroughly after each sample with ethanol and a flame.

As well as the samples of Etmopterus, whilst I was at the University I also collected some samples of some ray species as there are some very interesting research questions around them. Andrew has previously published research (see here) that Mediterranean and Atlantic populations of the longnose skate are genetically isolated suggesting that there is little (if any) contact between each group. This has had important implications for developing effective conservation and management measures for this threatened species, and highlights why projects like this are so crucial.

I was also surprised by (and also probably surprised) the Ambassador for Mozambique who was being given a tour of the department one day while I was in there!