Facilities
Our laboratory is located at the heart of the campus in Chesapeake Bay Hall (room s219) and overlooks the York River. It includes a variety of equipment for zooplankton research. Dissecting microscopes with light/dark field viewing capabilities are connected to a digital camera, and shared compound and inverted epifluorescent microscopes are available in the department as well. Our laboratory houses a shared FlowCAM imaging flow cytometer for automated counting, sizing, and imaging of plankton and particles. We have water baths and a large temperature/light control incubator for temperature control experiments. We have a half- and one-meter diameter plankton nets with a number of mesh sizes along with flow meters and temperature-depth recorders. Processing equipment includes plankton splitters and counting wheels, a digital tap counter, and a variety of micro-dissection tools. We have a variety of filtration apparati and pumps, a convection oven for drying samples, and balances. A Turner fluorometer is available for measurement of chlorophyll. The lab is equipped with a fume hood and separate fume vacuum hoses for use with dissecting microscopes. We also have assorted dive gear and equipment for blue water SCUBA diving.
In addition to what is housed in our laboratory, equipment from the Department of Biological Sciences is also available. Logistics for field work in the Chesapeake Bay are greatly simplified by using boats from the VIMS Vessel Center. VIMS IT Department makes sure your computer is humming happily along and has a large software selection to choose from. They also maintain a large, student computer room. VIMS Library is one of the best of its kind in marine science, housing thousands of books and hundreds of journals, and access to a vast array of online resources.
