Sunday, October 27, 2013

Observation 2

Observation 2

           
               I began the observation at 5:00 pm on Thursday. No much was seen in the beginning of the observation. This may be because most of the earlier observations were done along the aquatic plaits in the micro aquarium. Once I began to observe the base of the aquarium, near the sediment layer much more aquatic life could be seen.
          
                 The first organisms seen were long green algaes that were later identified by Mr. McFarland to be Dismids. These are photosynthetic and moved none over the course of observation. Several flagellate protozoa were later observed to be moving in a whipping motion. These could perhaps be Daphnia or Rotifer, however more reading on micro invertebrate life would be needed to properly identify these small organisms. A larger oval shaped protozoa or worm was seen coming in and out of the sediment layer. It seemed to have a gliding motion and was perhaps a type of  "flathead".  There seemed to be what I understand to be water net algae along parts of the bottom of the aquarium. It was a layer of cells with a brown color coating the top of the sediment. It was motionless for the entire observation. Next observation I will see if there are any changes to it. Before my next entry I will try to identify this cell layer and hopefully be able to identify the other protozoa's I had seen as well. All in all there were far more micro invertebrates seen in observation two than were seen in observation one.                
                
                There seemed to be no dead micro invertebrates along the base of the aquarium but there was some dead plant life. The decomposing plants may be why many of the micro invertebrates prefer the base of the aquarium. This may change after a week and I will make a point to observe the changes to the aquarium's base.

               Some distilled water was added to the aquarium at the end of the observation to account for the accidental loss of water during the observation.    

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

lab start



   Last Thursday we began the micro aquarium lab. The micro aquarium was constructed by adding the sample water in-between the micro aquarium viewing slide. There was about two millimeters of space between both sides of the slide giving room for the micro invertebrates from the water to move freely. The water for my micro aquarium was collected in the French Broad River, Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge. as the water set, a thin layer of sediment formed on the bottom of the slide. Two aquatic plants were added to the micro aquarium. These plants are , Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg, a moss collected from natural spring at Caters Mill Park and Utricularia gibba L, a carnivous plant collected from the south shore of Spain Lake. After the plants were added an initial observation was made with the microscope. No micro invertebrates were seen in this observation but that may be on account of how soon it was made after the transfer of the transfer of the water.

Information on collection sites.

- water: French Broad River, Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, Partial shade exposure, French Broad river watershed, N35 56. 742 W83 41. 628 841 ft 10/9/2011 Cladophora sp.

Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg,  moss collected from natural spring at Caters Mill Park, Carter Mill Road, Knox Co. TN. Partial shade exposure. N36. 01. 168. W83 41. 832. 10/13/2013

Utricularia gibba L, a carnivous plant, south shore of Spain Lake (N 35o55 12.35     W088o20 47 .000 Camp Bella Air Rd. East of Sparta TN. in White county. And grown in water tanks outside of greenhouse at Hesler Biology building. 10/13/2013