Every Summer Semester, Ecotox Master students do a 2-month internship or AMEO (Applied Module at an External Organization). Today, Marina Elizabete Zorge shares her AMEO experience, working as a research assistant with the SystemLink Graduate College at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau (Landau Campus).
My name is Marina Elizabete Zorge, and during the summer semester, I completed my curricular internship as a research assistant with SystemLink at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau (Landau Campus), Germany
About SystemLink and the Project
SystemLink is an innovative research training group investigating bottom-up and top-down interactions in terrestrial ecosystems that are influenced by aquatic environments exposed to anthropogenic stressors. This year, the project launched a large-scale study spanning 10 European regions (including Germany, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary) and analyzing 100 sites along a gradient of land use and hydromorphological influences.
While field teams conducted environmental sampling across Europe, I worked in the university laboratory (RPTU, Landau), handling post-sampling tasks. I was responsible for ensuring that the environmental samples received from the various field sites were systematically processed, analyzed, and organized.
Laboratory responsibilities
My primary laboratory responsibilities involved handling and analyzing aquatic macroinvertebrate samples. I was tasked with the taxonomic identification of organisms, distinguishing between different insect orders, such as Diptera, Ephemeroptera, and Plecoptera, as well as other taxa. Additionally, for each sample, I quantified the abundance of each group, sorted specimens into individual microtubes for preservation, and recorded the data in an Excel spreadsheet. This precise work was crucial for transforming raw field collections into a reliable, structured database that will support the research of 15 doctoral students within the graduate program.
This experience enabled me to collaborate with doctoral students and researchers, allowing me to gain valuable knowledge regarding large-scale ecological project management and data curation. The foundational knowledge and critical thinking skills acquired during my undergraduate studies were essential to successfully and precisely performing these laboratory procedures.
Finally, this internship highlighted the crucial importance of laboratory support and data management for the success of environmental assessments. This work reminds me of the famous quote by Galileo Galilei: “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not.” In the lab, my activity was exactly that: quantifying insect samples and storing the data in Excel to turn raw field collections into measurable science. I am grateful to the SystemLink team, as well as the PhD students and professors at RPTU Landau, for their guidance and support during my time with them. All of this contributed significantly to my professional development.