Well this is embarrassing...

As the title says. This is embarrassing. It seems that after doing my make up observation, I forgot to do a blog. I needed to get another picture because I only had 4. Other than there being an absolute ton of worms, I found it hard to find organisms. I saw a few Cyclops sp. and and a bunch of Euchlanis sp. I did end up finding this critter right here though.

It's a Gloeotrichia sp. it's a blue green algae and it was growing on one of my mosses.

Well this has been sufficiently embarrassing, and I'm doing this for my report. Marisol, if you're reading this, I'll take any credit you give me. Hopefully not a 0 but I understand .

Organisms? Organisms where did you go?

Ladies and gentlemen and botany lovers alike, I'm saddened to say that I have let you all down by missing an observation last week. I fell to an incumbent sickness that crippled me to bed. My love for these micro organisms, unfortunately, couldn't out weigh the micro organisms that were bringing my health down and my productivity to an astounding halt. Once again, my deepest regards go out to my followers (or should I say follower... cough cough Marisol).

Any way, I will say that I got a chance to run by the lab this week and see what was cooking in the waters of Atlantis. Also, I've been informed that I can make up the last observation tomorrow!!! I get another week with my organisms! Best news ever or best news ever? Well, without further adieu, I bring you the next installment of: Atlantis, the life of a microaquarium.

In lab on Tuesday, we got to see some organisms that moved around with flagella. Flagella are cool whip-like tails that help the organism move through a medium. Well, in my encounters with Atlantis I stumbled across an organism with a flagellum!! I looked it up and it is called a Stentor (Thorp 2013). Which looked like a big horn with a really long tail.

Despite the sweet find early on, I noticed that things had simmered down significantly. I noticed that the sludge build up had increased and the mosses' foliage color had been dimming even more. Plus, I could only see a few more organisms here and there. Where did they go? I miss them already! I'll be making another observation tomorrow, and I'll let you know if they're alright. Hopefully, all the non photosynthetic organisms didn't eat everyone...

With great disdain and displeasure, this is Hunter Herrin signing off.

Who threw the party?

Welcome back botany lovers! Another week is in the dust, and the time has come to brief you all on the update of Atlantis.

This week was an especially unique week because a food pellet was added to Atlantis on Friday, October 25th. This added a boost to the micro organisms hiding in the plant foliage. It draws them out to feed.

When I observed on October 31, the first thing I did was observe where the pellet was added. The pellet food had organisms all around it. However, the most notable features were hiding inside of the food pellet. I could see the pellet moving back and forth and I knew something was inside. I kept adjusting my microscope to try and see it, but no such luck. I began to wait to see if the organism would come out. Then, low and behold I could see through the pellet food to see that a large clear worm was eating the food. It was gigantic. It expanded the entire length of the pellet. That was when I realized there wasn't one worm but two! They were eating on opposite sides of the pellet, but coming towards each other. I wondered what would happen when they met. Would they fight to the death? Would they share each others food? Would they become best friends and go on a date? Was I thinking way too far into it? Yes, yes I was. When they met, they immediately retreated back to their respective sides and ate else where. All that watching and waiting for nothing. Worms are dumb. Pretty cool, but dumb.

After the worms, I decided to stroll through the rest of the micro world. I wanted to see if things had changed since the last time I left it. As soon as I got to the foliage, I realized that Atlantis had changed a lot more than I had expected, and not for the better. There was what looked like a light yellow sludge all over the moss's foliage, and a lot of the foliage color looked washed out. There were more spots of sludge in the open space, too. It was like these organisms threw a party and forgot to clean up before I got home. But, all in all, the organisms seemed happy in their filth.

Next week I'll have more pictures up of the now dirtied Atlantis. But, until next time, I'm Hunter Herrin and as my blog says, I love botany. Deuces.

Bibliography

Bibliography:

Pennak. Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States. New York (NY). Roland Press Company. 1953.
McFarland. Raven Biology of Plants. 2013.

Thorp, James H., and Covich, Alan P. Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates. 3rd edition. Canada: Academic Press, 2010, Print.

McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [cited 23 October 2013]. Available from http://botany1112013.blogspot.com//

Week 2 in Atlantis

Ladies and gentlemen, the time has arrived. Week 2 is officially over, and the blog has commenced. After a good long week I went back and observed my Microaquarium (which will now be referred to as Atlantis because it's that cool) on Wednesday October 23, 2013. My Microaquarium contains water from the Tennessee River and two mosses, you can find the contents in more detail in my first post. I took Atlantis from my section's bin, and put it under the microscope expecting to see it bursting with life. I was wrong. I couldn't see anything, and a wave of panic rushed over me. I thought for sure I had killed my aquarium. Frantically, I searched it under the microscope and finally caught a glimpse of something moving. I couldn't quite make out what it was until I adjusted the microscope to look past the vegetation. After that adjustment, I could see everything. It was like I had stumbled into a whole new world. I could see brown diatoms, which are algae (Pennak. 1953). They were everywhere; moving at a very slow pace, to and from the plants.

What else was I going to see? I was so excited. I decided to check down towards the dirt at the bottom. I immediately saw many Euchlanis sp. (Pennak. 1953) swimming around.

They swim really fast, and it was hard to get a picture of one. As this one was moving by the moss, the moss and dirt began to move. It was like a giant earthquake was happening in Atlantis. I tried to see what was making it move but it was inside the dirt. I upped the intensity of the microscope, and I could faintly see something in the dirt moving. I waited and waited and finally it reared its ugly head, and yes it was indeed ugly. It was a ringworm (Pennak. 1953). It was huge! Turns out the ringworm was eating the dirt. I could see him eating it and it going through his body. I couldn't get a clear picture of it though. Sorry guys.

As I was moving on up one of the mosses I spotted another creature that looked like a worm. This one, however, was a midge (Pennak. 1953).

This picture had to be put together with photoshop because it was so long. This shows the tail, on the left, and the head, on the right. The midge wasn't moving very fast or really doing much at all. But it looked cool to me so congrats midge! You made it in the blog.

I started to get a little curious after the midge. I upped the power of the microscope even more. Now I was getting into some really basic creatures. Nothing seemed to be moving though. I couldn't tell what was what. At least until... THIS!

This is called an Actinosphaerium sp. (Pennak. 1953). It looks like the Sun to me. It has many fibers on the outside, which, according to Pennak, are attached to another sphere inside of it. They aren't supposed to move, but this one seemed to have been drifting into the moss.

Last but not least, as I was getting ready to leave, I saw perhaps the coolest thing I had seen all day.. Behold the Cyclops sp.(Pennak. 1953). And yes, that is its real name.

It gets the name cyclops for the single I it has in the middle of its head. It's the red dot. This guy looks really intimidating. With its antennae that look like horns, its humongous stature, and the fact that it looks like a monster, he looks like he could be the king of Atlantis in no time.

That's all I've got for this week. In my next blog, I will be observing Atlantis after food pellets have been added. My bibliography will be in a separate post. I used Pennak because it was the only book I could get a hold of. 

See you all next week!

And so it begins...

Let it be know to the world that on October 15, 2013, Hunter Herrin began his MicroAqarium, and it. was. awesome.

It all started when we were taken to the top floor of Hesler and given a glass tank with a holder and a lid. I took three dots and put them in the top left corner one under the other. These dots represent my lab section, table, and seat number. Then I wrote my initial on the dots. (They're HCH so don't mess with my aquarium... OR ELSE)

Using a pipet, I took water from the container nearest to me and began to put it in my aquarium. The container contained water and dirt from the Tennessee River at the boat ramp across from the sewer plant (McFarland 2013). The first third of my aquarium consisted of water and dirt from the bottom layer of the container. The next third was from the middle layer of water, and the last third was from the top layer of water.
I put the tank on its stand and began to decorate it with plant parts. I used Amblystgium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg, a moss collected from a natural spring at Carter's Mill Park, and Fontinalis spp, a moss collected from Holston River along the John Sevier Hwy under the I-40 bridge (McFarland 2013). Then I put the lid on the container, and took a look at what was going to be my project for the next four weeks.

Next thing to do was look at it under the microscope. I took of the lid and stand and gently laid it down on the microscope stage. At first all I could see were the plants I put in and the dirt from the bottom of the tank. I couldn't see anything moving. So, I upped the intensity of the microscope. Finally, I started seeing things. I could see a lot of algae by the dirt or actually on it. Then, I saw something that resembled a protozoa that was attached to some of the moss. It had hairs around it and they were moving very fast, and moving the water around it. As, I was looking at the protozoa, something hit it. It was really fast, and I could only see it in my view for an instant. I tried to follow it, but it was too fast. Finally, I got to see a better look at it. I'm not entirely sure what it was, but I believe it was some kind of rotifer. Last, but not least I saw a clear bug hanging out in the dirt. It moved fast too, but I think it was some sort of mite.

DAY ONE DOWN!!!! Four more weeks to go! Join me next time as I explore the wondrous worlds that lay in my aquarium in WEEK 2. Get hyped.