Some of you might remember my Panama posts from a few weeks ago (if you do, thanks for reading my blog!). One of those posts focused on my work in Bocas del Toro, which I've been daydreaming about ever since the temperature dropped in State College. I went to Bocas to collect conch shells and bring them back to PSU so I could attempt to extract DNA from them for my dissertation work.
But all fieldwork has unexpected issues. Mine was odor. For some reason it didn't occur to me that shells that had been hanging out underwater would be hosting algae and barnacles that would start to reek as it decomposed. I also evicted a few snails while I was at Bocas, but some slime and fleshy bits remained... And I brought everything back in my checked luggage. |
Needless to say, even though all of the shells were at least quadruple-bagged, all of my clothes went into the wash as soon as I got home and the snails needed to be stored in my garage until I was ready to work with them. I couldn't inflict this kind of stench on the lovely people in the Anthropology building where I work.
I also only needed a piece of each shell for my DNA extraction. Part of my testing is figuring out how much shell material can be ground down and digested for an adequate DNA extraction. Also, drilling off just a piece of each shell gets pretty dusty, and I don't want snail shell dust contaminating our work space. I decided it made the most sense to subsample the shells at home and bring in only the pieces I needed to work with.
Thus, Garage Lab was born. Well, constructed/organized. Dan (for some reason) had decided to make a work table a few months ago, and a rather beat-up up silicon baking mat allowed me a cleanable surface to work on. I had Dan cut a hole in a clear tote for a "hood" to contain the shell dust. I borrowed some gloves, storage tubes, and squirt bottles from the lab. I purchased a slightly-fancy Dremel tool and definitely-fancy diamond-coated bits. Finally, after slathering on some SPF, I donned a particulate face mask and safety glasses, put on my "This is what a scientist looks like" t-shirt so the neighbors wouldn't ask questions, and went to work. |
I organized my shells by site, rinsed off any goo, and began slicing off the outermost rim of shell (see above). I also removed the tops of some shells 1) for an additional sample, and 2) to rinse particularly-resistant goo out of the shell. I had Dan take a video for y'all of my subsampling procedures (lower your volume and see below). It was a bit slower than anticipated, mostly because it was a rather warm day and I would bleach-clean my entire work station and change my gloves between samples to avoid contamination between individuals. Changing gloves is a difficult thing to do when you've got sweaty hands.
This week Dan and I will be machining a shell smasher out of stainless steel that I can sanitize between samples - I'll update y'all in my next "Research" blog post about how all that is going. Can't wait to see some snail shell DNA, keep your fingers crossed for me! Cheers everyone :D