10/18/11 MicroAquarium Observations and Discoveries

For my first week of observations, I witnessed a thriving ecosystem in my MicroAquarium.  It was amazing to see the diversity of life that was already present in my MicroAquarium.  While looking through the microscope, I noticed subtle movements around the plant and soil material.  By increasing the magnification, I saw an organism that moved in a wave-like fashion around the surface of the soil; it looked as though it was consuming the soil and swimming in circles.  Upon closer observation, I could see that it had a split tail and a large mouth.  I asked Dr. McFarland what I was seeing, and he said that this creature was a rotifer, and they tend to be hard to photograph.  According to the University of California Museum of Paleontology's website found at www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/phyla/rotifera/rotifera.html, rotifers are microscopic animals that are often found in freshwater and feed on organic matter.  I also had the opportunity to see various ciliates present in my MicroAquarium.
 Around the middle section of my aquarium, I also saw quite a few flagellates present.  These organisms tend to move in either a whip-like fashion with their flagella or they use their flagella to pull themselves along in their environment.  The flagellate I saw had one long, straight flagella and a shorter flagella that was more curved in its shape (See Figure 1). The smaller flagella is hard to see in the photograph, but through the microscope, it was perfectly visible.  These flagellates were huddled around a certain area in the MicroAquarium (Figure 2).   With the help of Dr. McFarland and the book Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide, we were able to identify the flagellate as a member of the Notosolenus genus; a similar picture was present in this book as Image #79.  We suspected it was a Notosolenus sp. because it was able to pull itself along with its flagella after mating with another flagellate.  Its second, smaller flagella was stationary through this movement.  A closer view of the main body of the Notosolenus sp. is available for viewing in Figure 3.

Lastly, I saw a beautiful organism called a Vorticella (Figure 4).  We were also able to identify this organism using the text mentioned earlier; a picture of a Vorticella was found as Image #232 in this text.  This organism resembles a blooming aquatic flower.  I discovered a useful website called Buzzle.com located at http://www.buzzle.com/articles/vorticella-facts.html,  that explained some interesting facts about the Vorticella. Vorticella are attached to a substrate by a stalk that can contract in order to capture food that is passing by it (BILW 2011).  It is amazingly quick, and is able to detach itself from its substrate whenever environmental conditions are unfavorable (BILW 2011).  Hopefully, I'll be able to view even more organisms in my MicroAquarium next week and check on the possible changes that have occurred in the organisms I have already discovered!




Figure 1 (Corresponds to Image #79 in Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide)

 


Figure 2 (Corresponds to Image # 79 in Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide)

 


Figure 3 (Corresponds to Image # 79 in Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide)

 


Figure 4 (Corresponds to Image # 232 in Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide)