Observation: Friday Oct 22

Today I did my first observation of my MicroAquarium since setting it up the previous week. Unfortunately, my MicroAquarium slipped out of my hands as I was putting it on the microscope stage, and the glass cracked on the front. Dr. McFarland helped me move all the water into a replacement and I was able to continue from there, but there was not a lot of movement and the sediment was scattered throughout. Despite this, I was still able to observe some organisms. The first organism I found was a Heliozoan, a type of protozoan. It is pale green with radiating lines, which I learned are pseudopodia that are used for capturing food (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/260097/heliozoan). The next organism I identified is a Fragilaria, which resembles a ruler. It is very straight and yellowish-brown. The third organism I identified was a Paramecium bursaria, which is a symbiotic protozoan. It is very large and a vivid green color, which I learned is due to a symbiosis with a single-celled algae called Chlorella (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/785659).

12 Oct 2010

Today each students set up a MicroAquarium. This is a small glass box that can be viewed under a microscope. Each of the students chose a water source, and then filled the MicroAquarium with water from this source. We took a sample of the water from the bottom, middle, and surface layers of the source, and included some soil/sediment from the original source. This left a layer of soil at the bottom of each MicroAquarium. Next, we added pieces of plant A and plant B to the MicroAquarium. This will provide oxygen to the organisms that will be residing inside.

Here's a picture and description of my water source:

6. Spring Creek off Woodson Dr running

through Dean's Woods Road frontage.,

Knox Co. Tennessee. Partial shade exposure

Tennessee River water Shed N35 55.274

W083 56.888 848 ft 10/10/2010

After setting up the MicroAquariums, we put them under the microscope and observed. I noticed a single moving organism, about half the diameter of a leaf of Plant A, who was moving up and down the leaf margin of Plant A.