Welcome to our June Newsletter! This month we celebrate environmental sustainability and awareness through highlighting the work of our customers.
Our winner of the FlowCam Graduate Research Grant will be contributing to ecological sustainability in New Hampshire's Great Bay Estuary. Purdue University is using FlowCam Nano to study atmospheric aerosols' effect on climate change. We examined sponge spicules in our lab, and we're proud of how FlowCam is being used to develop an integrated monitoring approach for drinking water.
Enjoy reading!
Your FlowCam Team
FLOWCAM GRANT WINNER SELECTED
Kelsey Meyer, Ph.D. Candidate at University of New Hampshire College of Life Sciences & Agriculture
Kelsey is a student in Dr. Bonnie Brown's research group and has been overseeing the lab's field sampling efforts, which include taking samples from Great Bay Estuary (GBE) in southeastern New Hampshire.
Specifically, Kelsey's research will be focused on the interactions of European Green Crabs and oyster larvae, which serve an important ecological function through habitat creation and water filtration. FlowCam will help map the abundance and distribution of both green crab and oyster larvae in the GBE.
Purdue University Uses FlowCam Nano to Study Atmospheric Aerosol's Effect on Climate Change
Alexander Laskin's Research Group at Purdue University has been studying environmental particles of natural and anthropogenic sources including oceans, deserts, volcanoes, emissions, and explosions. FlowCam Nano has been incorporated to provide imaging of colloidal particles 300 nm and larger suspended in aquatic systems. A new publication of their research reveals that colloids appear to shift to larger particle sizes and higher concentrations under prolonged exposure to light.
Optimizing Distance to Nearest Neighbor to Improve Particle Capture
Utilizing proper capture settings during image acquisition is crucial to obtaining accurate concentration and sizing data with FlowCam. Distance to nearest neighbor (DNN) is an important capture setting that specifies the distance (in µm) required between two particles for them to be imaged separately. Properly optimizing DNN ensures that only one complete particle is captured per image.
With a combined total of over 35 years of FlowCam experience, our sales team is ready to help you find the best FlowCam for your application. Working closely with our marketing and customer care teams, we create a seamless experience to guide you through the process of learning about Flow Imaging Microscopy and selecting the right instrument.
Characterizing and Mitigating Cyanobacterial Blooms in Drinking Water Reservoirs
In this recently published article, Hunter Adams and his team reveal how the Cypress Environmental Lab (CEL), in the City of Wichita Falls, has developed an integrated monitoring approach that combines different analyses from its microbiological and analytical laboratories while optimizing the water system's existing treatment technologies.
Sponge spicules captured by FlowCam 10X, Microsclere spicules shown include the following morphotypes: acanthostyle, arcuate chelas, clavidisc, diactene, sigma, and tetraxon.
Spicule analysis has traditionally been performed by visual inspection with light microscopy, a time-consuming and error-prone methodology. FlowCam offers an efficient alternative, capturing thousands of high-quality images of spicules and other particles in just minutes. These images illustrate the various forms of spicules found in a sediment sample recently analyzed by FlowCam.
Sponges belong to an ancient group of multicellular organisms that play important ecological roles in benthic marine communities throughout the world. These diverse animals are found in a rainbow of colors and their various shapes are supported by “skeletons” composed of crystallized spicules containing silica or calcium carbonate. Spicules are often unique to particular taxa of sponge, and when sponges die their tissues decay leaving these hard spicules behind where they become mixed into sediments.
Sponges have lived and died for hundreds of millions of years, leaving behind layer upon layer of sponge spicules on the ocean floor. This has led to an incredibly rich fossil record showing sponge community composition over time. By studying sponge spicules in marine sediment core samples, researchers can learn about sponge population dynamics and how they have changed temporally in relation to climate change. Because sponges are generally more tolerant of ocean acidification and ocean warming linked to climate change, they have the potential to benefit more from climate change than other more sensitive benthic invertebrates like coral. Evidence for this hypothesis can be found in spicule evaluation and identification.
FLOWCAM CAREERS
Join Our Growing Team - Come Work With Us
Since our inception in 1999, we've been making meaningful differences in the world by helping scientists develop new and safer pharmaceutical products, improve the quality of drinking water, and assist researchers in their understanding of marine and freshwater systems, among many other uses.
As we continue to grow, we're seeking new members for our FlowCam team: