Woah – 2 months flies by! It’s not that we haven’t been working really, really hard in the lab, it’s that we’ve just had so little time to update everyone on the team’s work. After returning from Seattle and adventures in the Puget Sound, Ian and Elliot’s feet were barely on the ground before we started lab work on the samples. First up, Ian extracted DNA from both the sediment samples and plankton tow samples we collected during the cruise, then applied our SSaDV detection protocol. Interestingly, looks like not a lot there, if anything. Hardly a surprise given recent findings* scroll ahead to see what we’re thinking.

Attack of the giant sea star papillae!

Next, Ian turned his attention to the historical samples provided by the California Academy of Sciences and the LA County Museum of Natural History last year. As a bit of background here, we had previously…