November 13 Observations

I'm afraid my observations from last week were a little skewed because i made the error of adding water to my micro-aquarium before observing, thus diluting my source and making my organisms much harder to find. Hey, it's science. These things happen. So when i observed my pond today without adding any water, there seemed to be much more organisms than there were last week, but in all actuality, there were probably less. This week they were just easier to find. That is my disclaimer for this week's observations. Take it as you will.
In the top waters, i found much more diatoms than before, mainly the accordian shaped ones. I also saw about four epistylis and three rotifers, also a bit more than last week. The abundance of blue green algae was overwhelming. My little organisms are finding it difficult to find much space to swim around.
In the middle waters I continued to find a variety of creatures. These included heliozoans(3), paramecium(5), and halteria (10+). The blue green algae continued to dominated this area as well, but i did observe one new creature. Known as Euplotes, this is a single celled ciliate, and has a rows of cirri which allow it to walk along certain surfaces (Patterson, 124). I only saw one of these.
In the muddy waters, i noticed even more of an abundance of carpenter's rulers, over ten to be more specific. Most of the organisms in this arena were colonized masses of diatoms and algae. The halteria continued to roam about here, as well as some rotifers and paramecium. However, the most large celled organism i saw was the Tachysoma. This creature is a single celled hypotrich with dorsal bristles that aid in its movement (Patterson, 124). It is also chlorophyll based. Attached is a self taken picture of the Tachysoma, just to the left of his friend the carpenter's ruler.

Running Works Cited Page

Bold, Harold C., and Michael J. Wynne. Introduction to the Algae, 2nd Edition. Prentice-Hall, Inc.: New Jersey. 1985. 82-86.

Patterson, D.J. Free Living Freshwater Protozoa. Manson Publishing Ltd: London, 1996. 51-143.

November 4th Observations

Numbers of organisms started diminishing this week. Particularly in the top and middle waters, there were significantly less organisms than I have seen any other week. In the top waters, I saw no more heliozoans, and slim to no more ciliates. The colonies of diatoms, however, still remained in high numbers, in fact, a great bit more than last week. There were only one or two rotifer's to be found as well. It seems that with the less organisms there are, the more algae has formed. I found several strands of algae throughout the entire pond.
The only organisms I saw in the middle waters with the plants were only a few paramecium, halteria, and rotifers. They were all swimming with great motion looking for food, I presume. It would seem as though they are the main predators of the pond.
The muddy waters is a different story, however, since numbers of organisms actually increased. A portion of these numbers can be attributed to dead organisms that have found their way to the bottom of the micro pond. In the lower waters, i observed approximately 12 paramecium, 15 halteria, and 12 carpenter's rulers, and one gastrotrich, and countless colonies of diatoms. These numbers were more than that of last week, save that of the gastrotrich. I did observe one new organism, however. It was a multi celled, non-chlorophyll based flagellate, that is a member of the genus, Peranema. It was rather large, and had a flagellum with a tip that moved the creature with a propeller like motion (Patterson, 51). Please observe this Peranema in the lower left hand corner.