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Scientific expedition to the South China Sea accomplished by ICDLI members

发布时间:2020-09-10  阅读次数:391

From September 6 to 10, 2020, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, together with Zhejiang University, Ocean University of China and Northwestern Polytechnical University, set sail from Sanya, Hainan, via R/V “Oriental Marine Science”. The destination of this scientific expedition was the south China sea. Associate researcher Yu Zhang of ICDLI led graduate students Jiakang Li, Yongxin Lv, Chen Tian, Xiao Ma, and Qilian Fan to participate in this expedition.

 

For two different water depths: 500m and 1000m, ICDLI team members adopted two sampling strategies: in situ and on deck sea-water filtrations. Accordingly, the differences in Marine microbial genome and transcriptome data caused by sampling strategies are compared. The data acquired would provide support for deep-sea microbial research, equipment development, as well as the offshore "Healthy Ocean" demonstration project. Despite time constraints and numerous experimental tasks, team members cooperated with each other and successfully completed tasks including microbial filtration, sample preservation and experimental data record, etc. At the same time, they also cooperated with other teams to complete equipment placement and retrieval. The efforts made by ICDLI members were highly appreciated by experts and peers participating in the expedition.

 

Water collecting equipment and high-throughput filtration equipment are launched synchronously.

The photo shows associate researcher Yu Zhang when she was guiding the student team to debug the equipment.

 

Most of the students were on their first expedition. Chen Tian, a member of the team, said: everyone was so nervous launching the in situ filtration equipment, since the whole team's efforts relies on the successful recovery of the membrane filters. After a batch of deep-sea microbial collection equipment was hoisted onto the deck, the team spent great efforts on recovering the membrane and water samples. Fortunately, with the enterprising spirit of solidarity and cooperation, the team successfully completed the task.

 

 

 

 

In the 3-day expedition, 19 teachers and students from four universities explored the South China Sea and promoted academic exchange. In the future, ICDLI of Shanghai Jiao Tong University will continue to collaborate with relevant Marine research institutions closely and conduct oceanographic studies.