ABSTRACT: This note describes a compact automatic sampler designed to collect small water samples (about 3 ml) at high frequency (minutes to hours), which is very useful for marine microbial data acquisition. The device consists of a microprocessor card controlling, through an interface and a BASIC program, a fraction collector, a peristaltic pump and a set of tube-pinching electrovalves. Samples are kept at 4°C until analysis or fixation, which appears to result in minimal effects on parameters such as abundance, size or pigment fluorescence.

KEY WORDS: Automatic sampling · Picoplankton

Published in AME Vol. 14, No. 3 (1998) on April 6
Print ISSN: 0948-3055; Online ISSN: 1616-1564. Copyright © Inter-Research, Oldendorf/Luhe, 1998