Shallow soft bottoms

Simple equipment

Taking samples with a drop-trap

A cylindrical specimen collector is used to catch organisms that live under the sediment surface such as ragworms, lugworms, cockles mud shrimps and macomas. The specimen collector can easily be made from a piece of metal or plastic piping and the diametre should be between 5-20 cm depending on the size of the organisms you want to catch. If the organisms are small and live in dense populations, then a narrower pipe is sufficent, but if they are sparsely populated, then a wider pipe would be necessary. When samples are taken, the pipe is driven 10-20 cm into the bottom sediment. Afterwards the pipe is plugged, rotated and carefully lifted up. The collected sediment is then poured into a sieve with a hole size of 1mm so the sediment can be sieved away and the organisms observed.

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