User:Emma L. Niden/Notebook/Biology 210 at AU

Lab #1 Lab Manual Title: "Biological Life at AU" January 26, 2015

Purpose: This lab introduces the concepts of an ecosystem and how abiotic and biotic factors coexist in a specific transect.

Introduction: A transect os a portion within an environment, consisting of both biotic and abiotic factors. This combination of living and non living creates a balanced ecosystem of organisms benefiting from its abiotic resources. Sometimes within an ecosystem the biotic components differ yet they are able to coexist either by benefitting from one another or living side by side.

Procedure: Groups observed their designated niche. The specific transect for our group was categorized as "Tall Bushes". Observations at the sight included a physical sample of both abiotic and biotic features of the environment, such as soil twigs, leaves, and rocks. A quick sketch was useful to refer to when mapping out the regions within the transect. Back in the lab, we created a Hay Infusion Culture of out transect's sample. This used, .1gm of dried milk and 500mL of water. We mixed all of this as well as at least 12g of our sample and then let the mixture sit for 1 week. The mixture will be used in the investigation of biotic factors from the transect.

Lab #2 Lab Manual Title: "Identifying Algae and Protists" January 26, 2015

Purpose: The purpose of this experiment was to explore the visible traits of an organism from our transect's Hay culture to determine its species.

Introduction: The dichotomous key helps scientists to come to conclusions about an organism's type based off of physical features that it displays. With the organism type known, they are then able to come to conclusions based off of other known organisms of that type, in order to give a larger perspective of that organism.

Procedure: Using the Hay infusion Culture prepared the week before from the sample of our trancesect, we observed the physical appearance as well as the scent of the jar. we also noted any new growths such as mold that formed on sides and on the thin film covering the top layer of water. To explore the microscopic life forms the group created slides from both the top layer of water, as well as the substances from the bottom of the jar. They looked at three different organisms from each layer, which they then used the dichotomies key in attempts to identify the species of each organism we found. The dichotomous key uses observations such as color, size, shape and other physical features/characteristics to outline points so that we can link together a suggested life form. For each organism we noted a few obvious features and then proceeded to follow along the key's questions.

Hay Infusion Culture [IMG 0079.png]

Organism #1 [IMG 0398.PNG]

Organism #2 [ ]

Organism #3 [ ]