The Microscopy Laboratory is a 1,800 square foot facility within UMD’s Natural Resources Research Institute. Laboratory staff are experienced at evaluating aquatic habitat conditions and establishing biological indicators for fish, amphibian, macroinvertebrate, and periphytic communities. The facility accommodates field preparations and logistics to successfully complete benthic sample collections, lab prepatory procedures, and sample processing under strict quality assurance/quality control protocols.
An aquaculture laboratory contains rearing chambers for test organisms, and a staging area for field logistics and sample archiving. A sample prepatory room and adjoining microscopy lab provide hazardous chemical storage, deep-freeze storage, and instrumentation for processing and estimating water chemistry parameters, sample organic content, and substrate particle size. The lab is equipped with a variety of compounds (Olympus BH-2 and Leica CME ) and stereomicroscopes, and provides digital imaging capabilities for identification purposes and estimating sample biomass.
Laboratory protocols follow published Standard Operating Procedures and field sampling guidelines defined on a per project basis. Laboratory staff provides technical expertise for both public and private organizations as part of federal and state sponsored monitoring and research activities, Environmental Impact Statement review, and Total Maximum Daily Load surveys. Invertebrate Lab capabilities range from calculating primary production through periphytic Cha content and biomass (AFDW) measurements, determining aquatic macroinvertebrate functional relationships, and generating secondary productivity biomass estimates.