They're on a Boat Part 4: Plankton Sampling and Nighttime Research

In this episode of Wildly Curious (formerly For the Love of Nature), co-host Katy Reiss wraps up the mini-series aboard a NOAA research vessel. This time, Allison Black interviews Amanda Jacobson, a plankton lab technician and biological science technician. Amanda shares what it's like working the night shift to collect zooplankton samples using a bongo net, revealing some of the fascinating marine life she’s encountered. From larval squid to jellyfish, Amanda’s work offers a glimpse into the hidden world of plankton and what it's like being the only scientist awake at night.

Perfect for marine biology lovers, ocean enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the critical role of plankton in marine ecosystems.

Transcript

Katy: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to for the Look of Nature Nature Podcast, where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know today. We are going over our very last episode and the NOAA series that we have, in our season break. Next week we do start season eight.

I, we still can't believe it, but make sure you guys listen next week as we kick off our new season. Until then, we wanna thank Allison Black and everyone else who helped her record episodes upon NOAA and just thank you guys for helping us out until then. Here's the last interview. 

Allison: Okay. I have Amanda here. Amanda, can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do here on the ship? 

Amanda: Yeah. I'm Amanda Jacobson. I am a biological science technician and plankton lab technician, so I help collect so plankton samples out here. 

Allison: Okay. And how long have you been doing this particular job? 

Amanda: Um, this gonna be two years this summer.

So between a year and a half. In two years. 

Allison: Okay. And do you work for NOAA or how [00:01:00] is your job structured? 

Amanda: Yeah, so I'm a contractor. it's a ProTech contract, so different companies, , been for different contracts that NOAA puts out or any government organization. And so I'm employed through a contract company that won one of those contracts.

Allison: Okay. And what does a day, a typical day on the ship look like for you? 

Amanda: For me while on this trip, I was on the night shift, so I was working 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM So I was sleeping most of the day, waking up, having dinner for breakfast, and then getting started with my bongo stations. The bongo net is what we call our z plankton sampling net.

 It's called that because it has two nets with a frame that kind of resembles bongos with they look like giant net bongos. 

Allison: It's true. 

Amanda: Then we did about six stations a night, processing those, washing down our nets and then 

Allison: preserving the samples. So what kind of [00:02:00] samples do you get when you say samples, what are you collecting from these 

Amanda: nets?

Yeah, so it goes through the water column down to 200 meters in a V pattern, and we tow it through the water. Okay. So we pick up whatever little creatures are in the water that can't. Swim faster than our net basically. The nets are 300, microns and so they pick up zoo plankton. They kind of, the phyto plankton usually goes through the smaller things.

And then we're picking up mostly zoo plankton and that can be anything. We've got a lot of souths this trip. A lot of Copa pods, a lot of krill mC tops a big jellyfish one time, so out some little squids, laal, squids. 

Allison: Well, that's cool. What is your favorite part of doing this job? 

Amanda: My favorite part is just seeing what comes up in the net every time.

[00:03:00] It's always interesting whether it's a lot, there's always something you didn't expect or just something interesting swimming around in there. And also just. Being out on the water, getting to see new species of marine mammals, especially on this trip.

Allison: And what about your least favorite part about doing this job?

Amanda: Well, sometimes the schedules can be crazy like this where I'm nocturnal for a little while and getting used to that can be tough, but, Overall, I enjoy it. Sometimes it's hard being away from home, but I, I still like getting out here no matter what. 

Allison: For sure. I understand that. What has been a highlight of this trip so far for you?

It doesn't have to be plankton. You can 

Amanda: say it. Yeah, I'll do a plankton one. And there you go. So I think I saw some larval squiz, swimming around while. This was before I preserved them, obviously, but swimming around in [00:04:00] my sample jars, which was really cool to see. Yeah, just taking pictures of that.

But then a marine mammal highlight was seeing the false killer whales because it was a new species for me. So that was really 

Allison: exciting. That was very exciting. And they were new species for me too. Okay, so last question. What do you think people would be most surprised to find out about what life is really like on a ship?

Amanda: I think the fact that we do 24 hour operations, so I'm up at night doing my plankton sampling, and on this trip at least, I'm the only one sampling at night, the only scientist awake at night. But during the day, there's always things going on and other trips, there's all different types of operations happening both day and night.

So I think it's interesting, like you're always kind of missing something, which is. Interesting. Like, I, I wanna be awake during the day seeing all the marine mammals, but I, I need to get my silk clicked in collection done at night. 

Allison: Great. Well, thank you so much, Amanda. It was nice to learn about Planton and what you do here on the Gorden Gunter.