I went out to Borden Creek in the Sipsey Wilderness today to run two driftnets, since yesterday was the new moon. We set up just downstream of the old bridge at the site, at the end of the access road:

The upstream net was set in 18 cm of water in a fast riffle at the top of a riffle/pool system. We wound up with a very impressive collection of winged adult insects.

The downstream site, at the base of a flowing pool, had the net set in 40 cm of water flowing much more slowly than the upstream site.

And a view of this stretch of creek from the bridge. Water level was pretty low for this time of year, it hasn't rained in 2 weeks in any significant way.

On To Parasite DNA!

I'm meeting with Luciano and Kara tomorrow afternoon. Kara has agreed to go over the darters we caught 10 days ago and pull off individual dactylogyrids and put them in small tubes of enzyme digest, the first step in isolating DNA. Luciano and I, but especially Luciano, have figured out the genes to target for sequencing in both the parasites and the host to see what kind of complementary phylogenetic trees may or may not exist. Hopefully we can get DNA from parasites of tennessee snubs, rainbow, stripetail and redline darters along with host DNA as a pilot project. I realize we could start working with some of the Panamanian Brachyrhaphis I brought back last year. I'm excited, this is at once real biology and fun!