As part of the Seachanges ITN, Lane was on secondment to learn about stable isotope research. Lane’s PhD research focuses on the historical ecology of Atlantic herring, tracing the early origins of the Atlantic herring trade in Europe and how human activity may have impacted the ecology and evolution of this species. She mostly focuses on ancient DNA and population genomics, but was able to take this opportunity to expand her research toolkit.
Lane extracted collagen from herring bones from two sites in an effort to gain insight into possible trophic changes herring may have experienced in response to fishing pressure. What with COVID restrictions and the small size of herring bones, there were challenges and creative workarounds to overcome, but she was ultimately successful in extracting all the collagen she needed. Now, she’s back in Oslo to await the results of the mass spectrometer and continue work on her ancient herring DNA.
