Working in marine lab I.O.M - Benthic Ecology

While living on the Isle of Man I stumbled upon a marine lab in Port Erin. It's behind a clothes shop and there were two lab technicians working. I got chatting and found out it used for a environmental company whose offices were upstairs.

I explored further and met Terry and Salma who run an environmental consultants on the island. They mentioned that both the current lab employees would soon be leaving. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss so I left my contact details and mentioned I would love to work there. 

Rowan is from the island so she began work when a free space arose. Me, still recovering from my knee surgery had to wait a few weeks before I got the chance to work. 

We were given the title of Benthic Ecologist. Our main job was to sort, float and sieve the samples taken with a day grab from whatever site was been surveyed. We had to follow a strict protocol to ensure no steps were missed out as this may effect to final results. 

After the substrate had been washed, sieved and floated, Using a magnifying lense and flat edged tweeers we shifted through the sand making sure not to miss any fourna which was alive when the grab was taken. We then split what we found into; molluscs, crustaceans, polycetes, eccinaderms and "other".