Final Viewing of my microaquarium

On the afternoon of 11/11/11, I made my final observations.First of all, my water, from Dean's Woods, was very dirty looking and it seemed as if a layer of dirt had begun to build up on the glass as well some very small sort of filamentous algae as well as some other sort of green single-celled algae that barely visible. Amongst all of this clutter in the lower third of the water there were many, many rotifers sp. There were also many coleps sp. which I hadn't noticed many of since the first viewing. There were also a lot of nematodes which I had not seen before. There were also still many epalxis sp. So the cyclops sp. had multiplied since the previous week. They have a tendency to stay in the corners and edges of the aquarium. I saw two males and two females. One female had two egg sacs attached and the other female just had one. Two of cyclops looked vey clean, the other two seemed to have debris attached to them. The moss, amblestegium sp., was still living but had clusters of orange-ish filamentous growths attached at regular intervals down its stalks. Amoebas, rotifers and paramecium seemed to congregate amongst these clusters. The carnivorous plant Utricularia gibba L is dead.

Picture Day for Outstanding Members of my Microaquarium Community

So, on Friday, Nov. 4, 2011, I returned to lab to view my micro aquarium, photograph a few distinct organisms, identify them and edit the photos to post to this blog. It really hadn't changed much from the previous week.

 I found this Coleochate sp. It is stationary and photosynthetic (Raven, Figure 17-36a).

This is who I call Mr. Cyclops sp. He is an arthropod that moves quickly and directly. I was unable to get an image of the female (Thorp, Figure 16c).

This is Epalxis sp., is a protozoa that moves slowly erraticly with two flaggelum, one leads the other lags behind (Patterson, Figure 311).

This is a Rotifer sp., there are many of these in my aquarium and like the Cyclops sp, they also move quickly (Patterson, Figure 15).

This Vorticella sp., is a protozoa that is stationary in that it's base is anchored. It has multiple flagellum that it uses to create a current that draws a random selection possible food to it. (Patterson, Figure 233).

Microaquarium Observation 3

Since last viewing my microaquarium, a beta food pellet from "Atison's Bet Food" had been added to the microaquarium, as well as more water. The original source of the water was Spring Creek at Dean's Woods (http://botany1112011.blogspot.com/). The next thing that stood out a lot was that the Utricalaria gibba seems to have died, the mossy Amblestegium, doesn't look so great, but it is still green p://botany1112011.blogspot.com/). There were two cyclops there today. I first saw them on Oct. 20, 2011, there were two living that day, and one corpse. Today I noticed that the pair consists of a male and a female. The female distinguished by egg sacs (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html). There is also an overwhelming number of diatom colonies, with rectangular shape concentrated more densely the closer you get to the soil (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html). Today I also noticed flagellated protazoa, probably euglenoids in large numbers (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html). There were filamentous spirogyra just like we saw in lab today that I had'nt seen before. The ciliates suctoria that I first saw on Oct. 20 had increased greatly in number and were concentrated on the plants. I also noticed bryozoans on the plants as well. missing from first sight last week was the midge. Nothing else that was recorded on the Oct. 20 viewing seemed to be missing. The ciliated protazoa coleps was still around but not in localized concentrations like last week. Another new find, which I saw only one of i indentified on a poster in the lab room I think it is the Sarcodinid diffugia. There are also clusters of colonial green algae that I'm not so sure what they are yet as I had a difficult time focusing on them.

Friday, October 20, 2011 Observations

On the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 20 the first noticeable change in my microaquarium was that there was significantly less water fron Spring Creek at Dean's Woods (http://botany1112011.blogspot.com/). I observed several organisms. I believe there were many protazoa, ciliates called coleps, they tended to congregate inside the shell of a dead cyclops (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html). The arthropod cyclops, which is a member of the group crustacea, sub group cyclopoida and sub class copepoda (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html ).There were two of these living and one corpse. The moved very quickly. The next thing I noticed was a diatom, asterionella (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html). It didn't seem to move at all. There was also a desmid, Closterium costatum (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html). This didn't seem to move either. Judging from a poster in the lab, I believed I found a midge, however, after looking for it I'm not sure if it is mosquito larva or caddisfly larva (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html). At first I saw it clinging to a branch, but it was hard to view it becasue it seemed to be inside the branch and it would pop out every now and then. When I saw the caddisfly larva that makes a shelter I thought that might be what it is. I found another thing that I thought was also a midge that was in the soil at the bottom of the aquarium, it also popped in and out of the soil similarly to the one on the branch. There was also another protazoa, the amoeba paramecium (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html). I also found the ciliate suctoria, there were several of these attached to the plants and i think even the glass http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html).

Term Project Blog References

References

Botany1112011.blogger.com [Internet]. An inquiry into the dynamic microorganisms in our environment Botany 111 2011; c2011 [cited 2011 October 12]. Available from: http://botany1112011.blogspot.com/


Patterson, DJ. 1992. Free Living Freshwaterater Protozoa: A Color Guide. Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press, Inc. 223 p.

Raven, Peter. 1999. Biology of Plants. 6th ed. New York (NY): WH Freeman and Company. 944 p. 

Thorp, James. 2011. Freshwater Invertebrates of North America. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 274 p.

Botany 111 Term Project Day 1: Preparing an Aquatic Environment

As we move into the second half of the semester we began with an introduction to and brief history of the concept of taxonomy. In setting up our microaquarium term project, we gained hands-on experience with creating a classification system to differentiate each student's individual microaquarium. Using a three level, color coded system we classified first by lab section, then table, then seat. Following this, Dr McFarland gave us a virtual tour of 13 sites around Knox County where he collected water and mud samples, explaining as well the source of the water at each site and also predominant plants specific to some sites. Dr McFarland explained his method of collecting. These are the three steps: first he gathered mud, second water from a mid-level area between the mud and water's surface and third he collected water from the surface. This he told was done because, as he said, there are different organisms living at different levels of the water and also so that we could harvest in the same fashion in the lab and be able to replicate these strata in our microaquariums. I chose to use water from Dean's Woods - SpringCreek (http://botany1112011.blogspot.com/). So, I extracted water from the bottom of the dish so that a mud layer was created on the bottom of my aquarium, using a tool that looked like a miniature turkey baister. I then extracted water from the mid section, then squeezed that into my microaquarium, and repeated with water from the surface. After that, using tweezers i removed a small piece of  Amblestegium sp. and  Utricularia gibba L (http://botany1112011.blogspot.com/) and put them into my microaquarium. Next I laid the the microaquarium gently on the microscope stage. I used only the 4x lens to observe, because I sometimes struggle to focus while looking into the microscope without seeing double and feeling slightly nauseaus. I observed both of the plant specimens however, I did not make note of which was which, so next time I'm going to make that distinction. Aside from the plants added the only other organism I observed looked like a small, round and iridescent moving around the water in a circular/spiral motion. I realize now that next time I look through the microscope I'm going to take more notes and inquire about this double vision problem.

References



Botany1112011.blogger.com [Internet]. An inquiry into the dynamic microorganisms in our environment Botany 111 2011; c2011 [cited 2011 October 12]. Available from: http://botany1112011.blogspot.com/