I arrived home on Tuesday evening with the 18:25 flight from Kristiansand. On the day of the departure, we all mainly spent time in the common areas as we had to free the cabins. It was very nice as we got to talk with a lot of the crew with which we normally did not get to interact too much and hear their experiences working on the boat.
Back in Bergen I have gotten the chance to start working in the lab with the eggs we have collected. At the start I was exchanging water in the egg containers, and keeping the beakers with hatched larvae clean for mass rearing, hoping to be able to grow them through all maturation stages and getting them to the infective stage in order to do further experiments. The eggs are kept in a fridge at around 7 degrees, the hatched larvae on the other hand at 4 degrees. To test if the temperature has an effect on the maturation we set up well-plates with parasites at 16, 12, 7 and 4 degrees. After about three weeks though we have decided to abort these survival experiments as the larvae were either dying or not maturing. The larvae in the mass rearing have also not given us too good of results. We manage to keep them alive for around two weeks then they all start to die off, sadly not reaching the infective stage. They go through a total of seven stages before that, but in the lab they only survive until about the fourth stage.
As i cannot base my thesis on this sadly, I have now started working with the adult parasites that we had dissected out and placed in ethanol. We collected around 250 samples so I can make some relevant data analysis on that. I am currently measuring the thorax of all the individuals and trying to separate them into 4 different groups according to the size and if they are singletons or not. I have to admit that I am enjoying this part of the project slightly more as it is more hands on.
In general, this experience has been very formative for me. Not only did I learn relevant techniques for my future studies but I also got to talk and exchange opinions with scientists and listen to their work experience and advices. Being able to help them, even if for a tiny bit, with their work was a very rewarding feeling, as I felt like I was part of something bigger. The fact that I was able to actually collect the specimens needed for my own thesis, makes this project feel so much more like my own and I am very excited to see where this can go!