Observation 5

These are close ups of plant A and shows the remnants of the eggs that I discussed in last week's blog post.

The shot below(on the far left) is a shot of the area at the bottom of the tank. The area is littered with filamentous organisms and a worm that was swimming amidst it all.

These are pictures of the organisms attached to plant B that I refer to later in the blog. They are bladders that trap food for the plant.

The most interesting development in my aquarium over the past week is the effects of MicroAquarium life on plant B. It has gone from green, lush and leafy to a smaller, browner plant. It has lost color, mass and the organisms that once lived around it have changed. It is now surrounded more by excess free-floating matter in the aquarium with only a few of the dandilion-like organisms observed last week. Also, there are a few filamentous organisms and some very small rotifers.

It has, however, developed interesting growths that look pear-shaped and hollow with long, stringy, attachments off the smaller end. I originally thought they might be organisms living on the plant, but I think they may be part of the plant that it has developed over the past few weeks. I then found out that they are bladders that trap food for the plant to feed on. The bladders are green and translucent and grow within close proximity with each other.

As the water levels in my aquarium continue to get lower, over all i'm noticing that plants A and B look a bit more shriveled and less green than they started out. Especially Plant B which has lost almost all of its color and mass.

Starting by looking at plant A I noticed it appears darker and less leafy. The MicroAquarium has an abundance of rotifers which are completely covering Plant A and all the area around it. Included in the area around plant A is a lot of debris that I cannot identify the source of. The biggest question I have is- Do rotifers reproduce and if so, is the debris i'm seeing eggs or a byproduct of the reproduction? I ask this because that is how it appears and I also see many even smaller organisms moving around that do not have a distinct, identifiable shape.

Most rotifers are female and reproduce asexually by laying eggs. This is rather unusual considering that rotifers are considered animals, and it is unusual for animals to reproduce in such ways.

I can conclude from this information that indeed, my rotifers have been reproducing which is the reason for the debris and many baby rotifers now inhabiting my MicroAquarium.

(My information on rotifer reproduction was found at: www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/phyla/rotifera/rotifera.html)

In contrast to last week I was only able to observe on tachysoma in the MicroAquarium this week. I'm sure there were more that I couldn't observe but the abundance of rotifers definately made the tachysoma less obvious and less easy to spot.

In plant B I observed a few organisms that I could not identify although they looked like dandilions and had a similar look as the actinosphaerium. They were white in color and immobile and sitting amidst the plant making it inconspicuous and hard to spot.

These Rotifers are also very present in the MicroAquarium. I first saw them last week although there was only one and it was much less active than they were this week. They were also spread throughout the aquarium instead of being located in one central location like the actinosphaaerium below.

This organism is called an actinosphaerium. It was found around the outer edge of plant A where the plant is less dense, yet it was not free-floating in the water. The radiating flagella help the organism to move and function around the aquarium.

There is also an abundance of these organisms in my MicroAquarium. The tachysoma were found in the soil, moving around in the water and around the plants. Their long bodies and cilia helped them move around the aquarium quickly and efficiently.

Week 2

In going back to my MicroAquarium this week the first change I noticed was the water level. It has decreased close to or a little less than a cm over the past week. I assume this is due to plants A and B using the water to grow and develope. While looking at Plant A, I noticed some of it is now out of the water resulting in that piece of the plant being darker and having smaller leaves than the rest of the plant. This is all I noticed about plant A because there were no organisms apparent around or on it.

Plant B had a few new things about it. It is growing a lot of hair-like structures out in all directions. There were many different kinds of multicellular organisms hiding in these structures. One I noticed was very transparent and had a long, flat shape, and it continuously circled the structure. Another was less translucent and moved repetatively in a circle within the plant.

In the sediment it was hard to see organisms moving but I was able to find a few very small multicellular organisms that appeared to be feeding off the nutrients in the soil. I caught a glimpse of a worm-like organism who came out but quickly rehid itself in the sediment. More interestingly in some algae that had fallen to the bottom of the MicroAquarium, there was an organism attached to it whose movements were intriguing. It was attached to the algae and moved back and forth while still attached to the one fixed point on plant, and while doing this, appeared to be stretching itself outward.

Lastly, in the water, there was a large multicellular organism that had a rounded body and a small pointed tail on the end. The organism was very active using its tail to change directions and propel itself. It maneuvered its way to the dirt where it appeared to be eating. When it reappeared from the dirt, I could see a sligt color difference then, but almost immediately, it went back into the soil.

Setting up my MicroAquarium and Observations- Week 1

Today, we set up our microaquariums during the lab. Starting off with the glass tank and using liquid #6, which is from Spring Creek and runs through Dean's Woods Road frontage., Knox Co. Tennessee where it has partial shade exposure. I then gathered dirt from the bottom of the container, and water from the top to drop into my microaquarium using a pipet. Also, I added plant parts A and B to my microaquarium to watch them develope during the project.



I couldn't observe much today because the microaquarium was just put together, many organisms were not moving or visible. I was able, however, to observe an organism in the dirt at the bottom of the aquarium. The organism was multi-cellular and had a shape similar to a teardrop. The organism was transparent and moved around but stayed in close proximity to the dirt where it hid and possibly fed.