Fish hatchery tour - part 1

Today I worked for a few hours at the lab. I really love to visit the Thonon Lab because there is such diversity in the types of ongoing studies. Today Lisandrina & Emilien took time to share their current studies on Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus). They are proud of their work and rightfully so.  I took my second selfie with Lisandrina. She says my selfie technique needs practice.

There are three graduate student projects at present dealing with survival of Arctic char eggs. One is examining the effect of sediment levels on egg survival. Another focuses on contaminants on survival. The third deals with using antibiotics to improve survival of eggs in the hatchery. They have   rooms (like walk-in freezers) where they can control temperature to see how temperature interacts with the aforementioned factors. One was being kept at 8 degrees Celsius; another @ 5 degrees. The individual eggs are held individually in small compartments in trays where different treatments have been applied. The first tray below holds eggs being treated with antibiotic, and the second tray was exposed to a high level of sediment. Sediment can make it difficult for unhatched fish to obtain  sufficient Oxygen to thrive. It is important to understand at what level of sediment may begin to impair reproduction. This question can be addressed in a lab setting because sediment levels can be controlled.