Cooperation

For this project, we initialized collaborations with different organizations. These collaborations have improved our working efficiency and reduced the cost of the project.

Florida Wildlife Commission

The FWC Marathon branch is helping us collecting the lobster larvae from the Keys. Two locations have been selected: Long Keys and Big Munson. Both sites are sampled seven days after the new moon each month. Every month, 25 post-larval (about 6 mm carapace length) samples will be collected and fixed in ethanol at each location.

Collecting lobster from the Keys

Lobster larvae collector

Lobster larvae collected for the project

Smithsonian Marine Station

We also cooperate with the Smithsonian Marine station on the lobster genetic project. At the Smithsonian marine station, we use microsatellite markers to detect the genetic structure in the Florida recruitment and the connectivity among the stocks in the Caribbean area.

Centrifuge used in this genetic experiment

DNA extraction system