User:Daniel R. Scanlan/Notebook/Biology 210 at AU

Lab 6: Zebra Fish experiment with Nicotine In our experiment, we tested what the effects of Nicotine on a developing Zebra fish embryo. We have two different groups, control and Nicotine. In control we added 2 ML of water in 20 different holes. We added 2 ML of Nicotine water solution to the test. Each hole in both control and Nicotine containers were filled with one embryo Check up 1: No fish have hatched Check up 2: No changes Check up 3: Possibly a few embryos have hatched and died over the weekend. Regrettably, I was unable to check on them over the weekend to collect any dead organisms. March 3rd check up: since we started using saw that 14 control hatched and 10 nicotine hatched. The nicotine fish seem much smaller than their counter parts. March 7th check up: Many of the nicotine fish have died, 7 are left in total. There are still 14 control fish. The deformities in the nicotine fish are much more apparent than in the last check up. March 8th Check up: Fascinatingly things have changed for the worse for the nicotine fish after just one day. There are only 6 nicotine fish left and they are much smaller than their counter parts. 3/6/16-DS

Healthy Control Fish

Deformed Nicotine Fish

Lab 5: Invertebrates and Vertebrates For this lab we observed Acoelmates and organisms within our transect. We first looked at slides already prepared from the Arachnida, Diplopoda, Chilopoda, insect and Crustacea classes and labeled their parts. We broke down our Burlese funnel and poured 12 ml of 50% ethanol and organisms in the Petrie dish. Then we poured the remaining liquid into another dish. We were only able to discover two types of organisms in our dish, which were termites and fleas there were 20 organisms in the dish. Though they varied in size, the flea had a larger average. I did find two very large fleas in the dish, they measured 2.3 mm. The samples from he different samples were very similar. I did not discover any spiders in my transect. There are many types of vertebrae that could inhabit my transect. The American Robin, (Animalia, Chordata, Aves, Passeriformes, Turdidae, Tirdus, T. Migratorous) Baltimore Oriole (Animalia, Chordata, Aves, Passeriformes, Icterdae, Icterus, I. Galbula.) Racoon (Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Carnivora, Procyonidae, Procyon, P. Lotor) White tail deer (Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Artiodactyla, Cervidae, Capreolinae, odocoileus, O. Virgininanus.) All of the organisms would benefit from the stream because it provides water. The birds would benefit from the Trees. Trees provide homes and hunting grounds for the both the Oriole and Robin. DS-2/16

Lab 4:Plantea and Fungi 1. The first plant we gathered from was a flowering bush that had buds near the side walk. 2. We found a tree on the side of the creek near McDowell and gathered a branch from that. 3. We found a brownish moss like plant on the ground near the bush we gathered our leaf from. 4. We found a fern plant near the stream and gathered a leaf from it. 5. We obtained a seed near the creek at the north end of our transect. The brownish moss we found is the only Bryophyte we brought back. All other plants we brought back are Tracheophytes. Interestingly, ferns are one of the least developed Tracheophytes. The genus for each is, Moss:Funaria, Fern:Matteucca. The seed we brought back from our transect was definitely monocot. The bud that we found look like it was about to flower due to warm the temperatures proceeding the snowstorm. On the fern, we did find evidence of spores on our fern. Sporangi are important because they hold the spores of a fungus. The picture I drew is what I saw after cutting up a mushroom and putting it under a microscope. -DS 2/8/16

Lab 3:Microbiology Our Hay Infusion Culture changed drastically since the first observation. The smell is even more pungent than before and there are more molds and slime growing on the surface and throughout the culture. I hypothesize that the pungent smell is because more bacteria has grown within the culture. Archaea would not grow on the agar dish, they only grow in extreme environments. There definitely was a noticeable difference between our two sets of plates. The plates smeared with Tetracycline had many more colonies than the regular plates. Honestly, we did not even notice any colonies on regular plates. I believe this indicates that bacteria immune to anti-bacterial substances grow faster than regular bacteria. Apparently, some bacteria actually grows better in the presence of tetracycline. Tetracycline would not have an effect on fungi. Any species that has an efflux pump or ribosomal protection protein. Though, we are uncertain what the cell we found is, we believe it to be a Eudorina. It did not have a flagella but was extremely motile. It may have been an amoeba because it did slide around. We sterilized a loop over a flame and scratched up a small amount of from the surface of the agar plate. Then we mixed it with water and drew a circle around it. We dried it by passing it through a flame three times with the bacterial smear side up. Then we rinsed it. We covered it with Gram's Iodine Mordant and washed it off after a minute. We decolonized it by flooding the bacterial smear with 95% alcohol for 10 seconds. We covered the smear with safranin stain for 25 seconds. Then we rinsed again. We blotted excess water with a kimwipe. After it dried we focused on it at low magnitude, then under 40x and the 100x oil immersion objectives. We did the PCR amplification, we labeled our PCR tubes. Added 20 ul of water to the mixture and then we dissolved the PCR bead. We used a sterile toothpick to pick up a tiny amount of bacteria. Then we submerged the bacteria in the mix for five seconds and put the tube in the machine. -DS 2/8/16

Lab 2 Hay Infusion and Preparing Serial Dilutions The smell of my hay infusion is absolutely repulsive, I am attributing the smell to the rotten onion grass we put in the jar. There appears to be molds on top of the liquid. Organisms that are farther from water may differ in their appearance than animals closer to water for a number of reasons. They may differ because they have different food sources and different forms of motility. After observing a sample from the top layer of the hay infusion, we were able to find one type of organism which we believed to be an Eudorina. The bottom layer had the same organisms. The organism was not large and was only about 18 um long. The organism we discovered was motile, it looked like a little bubble zooming around it's habitat. Its relieves it's energy from photosynthesis. The organism we found met all the qualifications for life; it had membrane bound organelles, Genetic info, definitely had energy, could reproduce, and definitely had energy. If the Hay infusion grew for another week, I believe we would find more organisms and the smell would be much worse. I diagramed how we prepared our serial dilution plates in the last picture. We had 4 10ml of sterile broth. We sanitized each plate with fire and had two different plates. One set had tetracycline (an antibiotic) and the other did not. -DS 2/2/16

Lab 1 aerial map of transect and pictures I am member of group 3, we were given a transect that is north east of the amphitheater and South of either the Hughes or McDowell buildings. In my group's 20X20 transect, a creek runs through the center of the plot. There are two slopes and rocks which allow one to cross the stream without getting their feet wet. While in the transect I noticed five different abiotic components in the area. There is water, rocks, soil,a piece of a candy wrapper, and clay on the bank. I noticed many biotic components in the transect, I saw a squirrel and a few birds. There are many plants in the transect including trees, ferns and bushes. -DS