Observation numero uno!

Week number one started off with a bang and a bug! The first organism I saw was a midge (pic 1). I saw many other organisms as well. It took a while but I, along with the help of Dr. McFarland, have identified all the pictures that I was able to capture! The critters may have been quick, but they stopped just long enough for a picture. Good luck trying to turn both of the knobs trying to keep up with them! It makes me feel like I am working an etch-a-sketch! Dr. McFarland helped me find cross reference each of these organisms with a book. Each book had a picture and a couple had a description of it. Here are a few pictures that I edited and my babies' names! 

First is my Midge. A midge is a larvae of a flying insect. He is getting bigger and bigger each week! In my first observation I found him in a very small cocoon type covering. He could move freely inside and, for lack of better words, flopped around every chance he got. At one point he extended the front half of his body out of his covering and grabbed debris and plugged up the hole he went out of. His Genus name is Chironomus. I do not know his species name though.

(Thorp, 1991. pg 652)

                                      

This is a water flea.  This one is very translucent but he is alive.  They are very quick and swim with the second set of antenna on their head. As they swim, if you can keep up with them, you can see them eat and excrete feces. His family name is Cladocera. 
(Pennak, 1989. pg. 374)

One of my favorite organisms I found was a Stentor. This on is swimming of course, but what fascinates me is these usually do not swim. They are usually attached to something. I have pictures in my next blog of a stentor attached to the sediment in the bottom of the tank and on the Amblestegium sp. 
(Lee, 1985 pg. 440)

Another interesting organism I found was a Stenostomum. This little fellow is actually 6 different organisms attached. They are called zooids and eventually they will split apart and go on their merry little way alone! I found him at the water line of my tank bobbing in and out of the water. He swam down into the tank, but not too far. I hope to see them broken apart in the future 
(Pennak, 1989. pg 132)

A difflugia is an amoeba. At first I thought this was something totally different, but Dr. McFarland looked at this and told me without any doubt that this little guy was a difflugia. Diffugias are small and round and you cannot see it in this picture but in others you can see where he is attached at. In this picture you can see the flagella around the outside and some of the organelles. Most of the details are obscured by the outer "shell" like covering, but small details are visible. The move slowly. I found this one near the bottom of my tank, but two others were found attached to the mud at the base of my tank. 
(Pennak, 1989)

Bibliography
Lee, John; Hunder, Seymour; Bovee, Eugene. 1985.  An Illustrated Guide to the Protoza. Lawerence (KS): Allen Press, Inc. pg. 440

Pennak, Robert W. 1989. Fresh-Water Invertebrates of the United States. Protozoa to Mollusca. 3rd Ed. New York (NY): John Wiley and Sons Inc. pgs. 132, 374

Thorp, James; Covich, Alan. 1991. Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates. San Diego (CA): Academic Press. pgs. 652

Setting up my Tank!

Picture by Kenneth McFarland

First off this is a picture of where my water in my tank came from. It is a small pool that is spring fed. The story goes that this spring used to flow into a creek, but unfortunately it was dammed up and now it is a small pool. Besides the spring that feeds it, runoff from the Lynnhurst Cemetery, off of Adair Drive in Knox Co Tennessee. The spring is in partial shade and here is the exact GPS coordinates for anyone who wants to go find it N36 01.357 W83 55.731 958 ft  :) 

First I filled my MicroAquarium^TM   ⅓ of the way with sediment from the bottom of the pool and made sure it was fairly level. After that I filled it ⅓ of the way with water from the middle of the sample, and I filled it the rest of the way with water from the surface. To keep our tank from turning anaerobic we added two different types of plants.

Picture by Graeme

The first plant was Amblystegium sp. This moss grows in water and was taken from a natural spring at Carters Mill Park which is on Carter Mill Road in Knox CO. TN. It was grown in partial shade exposure and the GPA coordinates are N36 01.168 W83 42.832.  

Flowers and Carnivorous bulbs of Bladderwort (fig 1 & 2)
(Salmon and Almodovar)

The second plant we added was the Utricularia gibba L. Picture 1 is of the flowers that are above the water. The second picture is a microscopic photo of the below water carnivorous bulbs. Looking up close the inside of the bulbs looks like a Conch shell. Small organisms can move in and out of the bulb, but larger organisms cannot swim back out once they are in. This plant is originally from the south shore of Spain Lake (N 35o55 12.35" W088o20' 47.00), Camp Bella Air Rd. East of Sparta Tn. in White Co. Then the plant was grown in water tanks outside of the greenhouse at Hesler Biology Building at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

After adding my plants my tank looked like this! The first two plants you see are Amblystegium sp. The second plant is Utricularia gibba L. The fourth plant is the Amblystegium sp. You cannot see any thing else in the tank but I observed many tiny organisms living in there. I cannot wait until my next observation to see my little tank and all my babies!! :)

 

Bibliography 

Botany 111 Fall 2012 (Blog). Watersource: 10. Lynnhurst Cemetery off of Adair Drive. Knox Co (cited 2012 October 24).  Available from: http://botany1112012.blogspot.com

Bruce Salmon, author of "Carnivorous Plants of New Zealand" (Ecosphere publications, 2001) Picture available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utricularia_gibba

Picture 2 of Utricularia gibba by Jose R. Almodovar 2011

Amblystegium sp picture by blogger Graeme available at http://www.ispot.org.uk/node/107228