Bryozoan and brachiopod development

Shipping live colonies


Colonies of Membranipora membranacea needed to be shipped from Bergen, Norway to Dresden, Germany. The first package contained around 10 pieces of kelp blades with colonies inside single transparent plastic bag filled with sea water (bubbled overnight) and sealed with tape. Bag was surrounded by icepacks to keep temperatures low. Upon arrival we realized that the plastic bag had ruptured during the trip and the colonies were out of the water for an unknown period of time. They were placed in a 50 L plastic tank in the cold room (4 °C) immediately. After 1h I checked under the scope and all the colonies were dead.



Our colleagues in Bergen prepared an emergency second shipment, this time with colonies placed inside three plastic bags with sea water (not bubbled) and less air to avoid water movement that could rip the plastic. Upon arrrival two of the inner plastic bags were broken, but colonies were still underwater. They were split in two groups to be kept at 4 °C and 12 °C and were acclimatized in 1:1 natural:artificial sea water for 1h. Then they were transferred to artificial sea water. Under the scope zooids were still moving. On the following morning, however, most of the colonies were dead or just-dead, but still with some normal embryos which I extracted as described below.



Acknowledgements: Annie Boddington and Aina Børve for collection and shipping from Bergen. Yu-Wen Hsieh and Daniele Soroldoni for preparing cultures and receiving the bryozoans in Dresden.

Sample preparation


TBD: I managed to scrape better-looking embryos from inside the zooids. Some embryos got activated and started cleaving. Embryos were stained with a membrane marker (FM 4-64).

Imaging
TBD: I tried to image them in the Scanned Lightsheet SPIM (Meyers SPIM) since it has temperature control in the chamber and is adapted to small samples. Unfortunately, we only manage to acquire a small time-lapse from an embryo that was not healthy: