Fourth Observation: 11-12-2010

At the beginning of my last observation I once again replaced the evaporated water with water from a squeeze bottle at the front of the lab. Under the microscope I spotted 20-30 nematodes, about 15 lecane rotifers, and a lot of difflugia. Near the dirt in the bottom of the aquarium I spotted a very small organism that was moving in a sliding motion, back-and-forth, in one area very slowly. I discovered that it was called a Navicula sp. and they live on, but are not attached to a surface area (Canter-Lund and Lund 1995).

Citation:
Canter-Lund Hilda, Lund John W.G. 1995. Freshwater Algae: Their Microscopic World Explored. Bristol (England): Biopress Ltd., p. 130. fig. 237.

Third Observation 11-5-2010

At the beginning of my third observation I replaced the evaporated water with water at the front of the lab. I then went proceeded to use a microscope with a camera to look at my microaquarium. I saw about 10 nematodes and 20 rotifers.  I still have not seen any more vorticella. I then spotted something that resembled a snail with its shell moving very slowly around one of the plants. It is called a Difflugia, it is found either around sand or soil or on the surface of aquatic plants and has finger-like pseudopodia to move around with (Rainis and Russell 1996). I then saw another difflugia who "grabbed" at a rotifer and was moving the rotifer back and forth, shortly the rotifer got away and the dufflugia went about its business. After that I spotted a small organism that was moving very rapidly around the plant, it seemed to have a lot of little appendages around its body and was using them to move. I found out that it is called a Euplote (Patterson 2003). I then spotted several small organisms surrounding some larger organisms and appeared to be eating the larger ones. These were called Coleps and are found in marshes or shallows among submerged debris; they are active scavengers had have been preserved in the fossil record (Rainis and Russell 1996).

Citation:

Patterson D.J. 2003. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide. Washington (DC): ASM Press, p. 124. fig. 260.


Rainis Kenneth G, Russell Bruce J. 1996. Guide to Microlife. Danbury (CT): Franklin Watts, p. 90.


Rainis Kenneth G, Russell Bruce J. 1996. Guide to Microlife. Danbury (CT): Franklin Watts, p. 160.

Second Observation 10-29-2010

For my second observation I started by replacing the evaporated water in the aquarium. Once I placed it under the microscope I looked at the place where the food pellet was resting and noticed 20-30 rotifers feeding on the pellet. I did not see anything new around the plants so I started to look at the soil. I noticed a worm looking creature that was near the soil siphoning/eating and moving in a side-to-side motion. I discovered that they are called nematodes; a threadlike worm that live in any sand, soil, or mud and are also sold by gardening firms to kill anthropod pests and insect larvae (Rainis and Russell 1996). There was also plenty of rotifers near the soil, but these were moving so fast it was hard to get a count of them. However, I did not spot any vorticella during the observation.

Citation:
Rainis Kenneth G, Russell Bruce J. 1996. Guide to Microlife. Danbury (CT): Franklin Watts, p. 230-231.

First Observation 10-20-2010

For my first open lab observation I noticed that my micro-aquarium had lost about one centimeter of water and I replaced the lost water with water in a squeeze bottle at the front of the lab. During observation I noticed several organisms at the bottom of a plant near the soil that had two appendages sticking out of them. They are called Lecane Rotifers and they mostly stay in soil or sand and are common in open waters 7-10 cm from the shoreline (Rainis and Russell 1996).

After spotting the rotifers I noticed that there was a lot of movement near Plant B. When I focused on the movement I saw what appeared to be a little colony of tiny green organisms moving in a circular pattern inside the plant. I was told that they were paramecium in a a disintegrating bladder on Plant B (McFarland 2010).

I then spotted a Vorticella sp. that was attached to the plant and looked like it was filtering water through its "mouth", these protozoa feed on bacteria and small algae (Bick 1972).

Finally, on Friday (10-22-2010) one pellet of "Atison's Betta Food" (made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104. Ingredients: Fish meal, wheat flower, soy meal, krill meal, minerals, vitamins and preservatives. Analysis: Crude Protein 36%; Crude fat 4.5%; Crude Fiber 3.5%; Moisture 8% and Ash 15%) was added to each Micro-Aquarium (An Inquiry Into...[updated 2010]).

Citation:
 An Inquiry into the Dynamic Microorganisms in our Environment [Internet]. [Updated 2010 Oct 22]. Knoxville (TN): Ken McFarland University of Tennessee Biology Department; [cited 2010 Oct 20]. Available from: http://botany1112010.blogspot.com/

Hartmut Bick. 1972. Ciliated Protozoa. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, p. 110-111.
McFarland Kenneth. 2010. Paramecium in plant bladder. In: Botany Open Lab; 2010 Oct. 24; Knoxville (TN).

Rainis Kenneth G, Russell Bruce J. 1996. Guide to Microlife. Danbury (CT): Franklin Watts, p. 193.

Day 1: MicroAquarium Set-up

When setting up my MicroAquarium I took water from sample number 4 which was water from the Holston River beside John Sevier Hwy under the I 40 bridge, the water was in partial shade N36 00.527 W83 49.549 823 ft (An Inquiry into...[Updated 2010]). I started out by taking soil from the sample and placing it in my aquarium, I then took water from the bottom, middle, and top of the sample to fill up the rest of my aquarium. Once that was done I took one samples of two different plants Fontinalis sp. Moss, which was collected from a natural spring at Carter Mill Park in partial shade N36 01.168 W83 42.832, and Utricularia gibba L. flowering plant, a carnivorous plant originally from the south shore of Spain Lake N 35o55 12.35" W088o20' 47.00 and grown in water tanks outside the greenhouse at the Hesler Biology Building (An Inquiry into...[Updated 2010]). 


After everything was set-up I carefully tipped my aquarium on its side and placed it under the microscope. I used the 4X and 10X lenses to view the aquarium. I immediately noticed several small organisms moving around the plants, they moved like they were rolling and appeared to be eating the plants. I then looked at the soil level and saw that there was a lot more movement there. I saw several organisms which looked like they were sifting through the soil and eating it. I saw one interesting organism that appeared to be an extremely tiny slug, it moved a lot like an inchworm and was eating at anything it could get its mouth on. I followed it for a while then moved to the top of the aquarium. However, there did not seem to be a lot of movement there.


Citation:
 An Inquiry into the Dynamic Microorganisms in our Environment [Internet]. [Updated 2010 Oct 4]. Knoxville (TN): Ken McFarland University of Tennessee Biology Department; [cited 2010 Oct 18]. Available from: http://botany1112010.blogspot.com/