Meet Isabel Black from
APEM’s marine BioLabs team

Growing up in some of the most beautiful places in the UK meant I spent most of my childhood outdoors! From spotting buzzards on the moors in the borders of Scotland to rock-pooling on Brighton’s beaches, I was almost constantly barefoot and a little bit feral. My sister and I ‘founded’ our own family wildlife rescue service as children that stuck around into our teenage years and beyond! Under W.I.N.C. (Wildlife in Need Corporation), I rescued dozens of toads from busy roads, alone in a rainstorm, armed with nothing but a torch and a bucket. I’ve saved baby pigeons and hedgehogs from hungry seagulls (Brightonians will know!), and I’ve swum a beached smooth-hound shark back out to sea on my body board.

Safe to say, caring for animals was a huge part of my childhood! When I was indoors, you could find me re-reading my shark encyclopaedia or watching any ocean documentary I could find. As I grew up, my passion for marine life only intensified, culminating in a four-year marine biology integrated master’s degree at the University of Southampton.

I was extremely lucky to learn from some of the leaders in marine research at the National Oceanography Centre. I took advantage of this by studying cutting edge techniques in metabolic ecology using isotope tracing of fish otoliths. I was able to research comparative field metabolic rates of polar cod and haddock – something never done before! I inferred information about their hunting habits, mating seasons and competitive advantages in a warming ocean. I found the topic fascinating and would recommend anyone to read the (admittedly very few) papers on the subject.

After I graduated with my masters, I was dead set on finding a job in the field I loved so much. I wanted to be hands-on biology with the opportunity to learn and develop my skills even further. That’s where APEM came in!

Now that you are here, tell us what a typical day looks like?

A lot of time spent looking down a microscope! Each day is different, but the process for analysing samples is very similar each time. Samples come in buckets ranging in size from 0.5L to 10L and from all over the world – we’ve had everything from the North Sea to Norway and English re-flooded marshes.

We sieve each sample in order to fraction them by particle size, then extract every living thing from each fraction under the microscope. I’ve seen such a range of organisms in my five months working in the lab. Every day I see something I haven’t seen yet! I’m working on my polychaete family identification at the moment which I’m finding especially interesting. In the future, I’ll be able to identify each organism extracted down to as far as species level using taxonomic keys.

A day doesn’t go by without collaboration from everyone in the lab. If someone is stuck on an ID, the animal can be passed around two, three or four members of the team for opinions! It’s a great environment in that way because everyone is always willing to help.

Izzy Black and her Frisbee team

So outside of working at APEM, what keeps you busy?

Alongside my lifelong obsession with the ocean, I’ve always been a creative person. I’ve danced ballet and tap since I was two years old and went on to teach in my later teen years. Ballet was something that let me feel separate to my very intense academic goals and was ultimately an amazing release of energy for me.

At university, I found the ballet environment to be slightly different from the close knit, supportive family group I’d grown up with so switched over to musical theatre. I absolutely adored the community I found! Singing, dancing, and acting became my outlet and I spent most of my university life participating in shows in one form or another. I was both a cast member and a producer at different times, which added a new aspect to my hobby.

As COVID hit, big shows with big audiences became a thing of the past. With my master’s looming, I still needed that outlet. That’s where Ultimate Frisbee came in! I joined on a whim having not enjoyed team sport before in my life and had my mind totally changed. I met some of my favourite people through Frisbee and loved a team sport for the first time.

Now COVID has eased, I still regularly attend tournaments with my grad team, and have found new joy in an AmDram group in Letchworth which is where I am based. I think it just shows that although my career and love for the marine world is extremely important to me, it doesn’t have to be the only thing I enjoy!

Welcome to the team Isabel – anyone up for an APEM Ultimate Frisbee team?!