Final Observation/ Observation 5

The final observation proved nothing new. Everything has either died or seemed to not be reproducing. Throughout this whole experience I have seem many organisms die and reproduce, but this observation was a struggle to find anything besides debris and plants. I decided to take a look at the plants and found many of them were unchanged. This was pretty surprising to me because I thought that the plants would either grow because of the plant food or die because of the organisms eating on them. Pictured below is the plant Utricularia gibba. If you look at my first observation I took a picture which also included the Ultriculara gibba and they both appear to be the same.  This experience was pretty cool as it gave me a chance to see things grow and die. It's pretty cool how bacteria changes all the time, however, they have remained the same for millions of years. 

Observation 4

Everything in my aquarium seems to be dying. There is not much floating around that is alive besides paramecium which were identified earlier. There is however a lot of debris floating around (pictured below.) There was something strange floating around that could not be identified. It looked almost like chromosomes from an organism just floating around. Possibly after an organism had died? Because things are floating around and not moving much I am pretty sure my aquarium is dead. It seems my aquarium has seen its better days.

BIbliography post

Canter-Lund H. and Lund J.WC. 1995. Fresh Water Algae; Their microscopic world explored. 

McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [cited 11/06/13]. Available at http://botany1112013.blogspot.com/


 Pennak Robert W. 1989. Fresh Water Invertabrates of the U.S. 


Patterson D.J. 1996. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa

Rainis K and Russell B.1996. Guide to Micro Life.Canada

Observation 3

During this observation I found that many of my living specimens have died.  I was pretty suprised because Dr. MacFarland added a pellet of beta food on October 25. I thought this would allow my plants and organisms to grow. Previously, I did not have to look much to find and observe many items, but this time it was very difficult to find anything to observe. However, I did find many green spherical looking items that did not appear to have any type of visible membrane or nucleus leading to the assumption that it was not living. Dr. McFarland and I could not identify it and could not conclude that it was the reason for the decreasing organisms. The items I did find that were living were the same as previously observed and had appeared to grow somewhat. The green living plants appeared to be dying some and looked like they had been used as a food source. The dirt at the bottom appeared to have some living specimens but none that could be identified.

(McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [cited 11/12/13]. Available at http://botany1112013.blogspot.com/)

Microaquarium Set Up/ Observation 1

I set up my aquarium with water from Green House tank 8, tank 2, from cyanobacteria biofilm, izola pot, and from a nepenthes truncata plant. I observed many different life hanging around the plant life which was Utricularia gibba from Spain Lake (N 35o55 12.35" W088o20' 47.00), Camp Bella Air Rd. East of Sparta Tn. in White Co. and grown in water tanks outside of greenhouse at Hesler Biology Building. The University of Tennessee. Knox Co. Knoxville TN. 10/13/2013 (McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [cited 11/06/13]. Available at http://botany1112013.blogspot.com/)

Observation 2

In this observation I saw many different species that were all over the place. I saw species like litonotus and even saw a tachysoma that was going to division. All the species seemed to be communication with their surroundings and were generally hanging around the same species as their own. The food source was all over the place and was not in the same form as before. (Pennak Robert W. 1989. Fresh Water Invertabrates of the U.S.  Patterson D.J. 1996. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa)