User:Olivia Wons/Notebook/Biology 210 at AU

February 13, 2016

Exercise 5:Invertebrates

Part 1:

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The Berlese Funnel sample that was done from a collection of components from transect 4 showed varying organisms. Of the four different organisms identified in the sample, 3 of them shared very similar characteristics. Most only differing in color or size of segments, but most resembling a very similar type of invertebrate. From the naked eye at first they almost seemed as if they we're very small spices because of the segmented bodies and 8 legs. The one organism that differed in characteristics was similar to the others but substantially smaller in size and had antennas. Of the organisms observed there was not too much variation. They measured in at either 1mm, one was at 2mm, and the last organism was at .25mm. Because there were samples of organism #3, one of them measure in at the largest, 2mm, and the other was just 1mm. Organism #4 rang in the lowest at .25mm. Due to the similar trends seen across these four different types of organisms, it can be concluded that transect four's most common invertebrates are very small organisms in size ranging from .25mm-2mm, with likely segmented bodies, 8 legs, and relatively dark in color (brown/black/grey).

The two samples from the Berlese Funnel were different because organisms 1 and 2 came strictly from the first sample and organisms 3 and 4 came strictly from the second sample.

Part 2:

1.) In transect 4 you may find vertebrates such as mammalia (deer), testudinia (turtles), actinopterygiii (fish), aves (birds), and anura (frogs). 2.) Classification :

• Deer: Chordata, mammal, artiodactyla, cervidae, odocileus, odecileus virginianus
• Turtles: Chordata, reptilia, testudines, chelnoiidae, chelonia, mydas
• Fish: Chordata, actinopterygii, cypriniformes, cyprinidae, cyprinus, cyprinus carpio
• Birds: Chordata, aves, passeriformes, turdidae, turdus, turdus migratorious
• Frogs: Chordata, vetabrata, amphibia, anura, ranidae, lithobates, catesbianus

Many different biotic and abiotic characteristics benefit the environment for each species. The deer benefit from the bushes and and grass a course of food as well as the pond as a source of drinking water. The turtle benefit from transect 4's environment because it has components of both dry and wet conditions. There is the pond where some turtles may find their natural habitat for swimming while others might use the surrounding rocks around the pond as a place for sunbathing. The fish located in the pond use the water and smaller organisms within the pond as both a habitat and form of survival. The birds feed off some of the taller trees that contain small budding plant as well as use the trees and bushes to rest on or grow nests for future generations. Lastly, the frogs would benefit similar to the turtles in that they have the pond as a source of water for swimming and eating smaller organisms located within it and they have the surrounding rocks and grass area for resting and sun bathing and as a habitat.

Food Web: http://openwetware.org/images/9/9a/FullSizeRender-12.jpg

The organisms that make up transect 4 represent a community because it is a composite of interacting species including trees, bushes, leaves, soil, small organisms like arthropods, fish, and visiting organisms occasionally like birds and squirrels. Due to the transect's pond like garden setting, the carrying capacity is limited to much smaller organisms. The ability of this ecosystem to hold organisms is mostly limited to insects and small animals like squirrels and a very small population of aquatic life. This ecosystem could not hold a bear or fox. They may come to this transect space to feed off the small organisms that live there but they would certainly not be living in such an ecosystem. The large snow storm that swept through DC recently could have easily altered the ecosystem's carrying capacity. The large snow amounts may have wiped out certain organisms but then the warm weather and fast melting of the snow could have increased the carrying capacity because it may have attracted animals that like wet, damp places, but could have also decreased the carrying capacity because organisms that usually live there may not be adapt to the very watery conditions. Because the carrying capacity ranges in organisms this allows the ecosystem to have a food web of all the different trophic levels. For example something like soil of the ecosystem is a primary producer and a bird would be a tertiary consumer in this case.

Keystone Species: fits in arch and without it would fall, it holds the environment together ex. sea otters

Indicator Species: indicative of environment conditions

February 7, 2016

Exercise 4: Identifying and Studying Plants

Part 1:

Five Plants and Location within Transect:

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• images of plants described in table above

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• The genus of all five plants is angiosperm
• There were no ferns collected of the 5 different plants

Plants #2 and #4 showed evidence of flowers

Part 2:

• Fungi sporangia are spores located on the fungi and occur when hyphae grow in the upward direction and then create black, small sphere-like spores. This usually occurs throughout a fungi's lifecycle. The Fungi sporangia are important because sporangia are the origin of meiosis, which produce haploid spores what are genetically distinct.

Fungi Samples: 1.) Black bread mold: fungi, belongs to zygomycota group 2.) Mushroom: fungi, belongs to basidiomycota group 3.) Fungus on Seeds: zygotmycota group

• Mushroom in more detail
• hand drawn picture of mushroom

http://openwetware.org/images/2/29/FullSizeRender-11.jpg

• This mushroom is a grayish/brown color with a smooth top. When sliced in half the inside detail of the mushroom is seen as in the picture. The mushroom has fan like slits that are in the middle of the mushroom which go up and down and are all parallel to one another. This creates a texture to the inside of the mushroom which ads a rough component to the appearance as well.
• below is a picture of the mushroom from ariel view as well as a picture from under the observation microscope.

http://openwetware.org/images/5/58/IMG_6200.jpg http://openwetware.org/images/a/a7/IMG_6202.jpg

January 31, 2106

Exercise 3: Identifying and Studying Bacteria

Part 1:

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After observing both plates with and without antibiotics, it was shown that plates not containing antibiotics had a substantial greater amount of colonies than the antibiotic plants. They both decreased in colonies in plate as the dilution increased. This indicates that the antibiotic plates containing tetracycline were effective at preventing the development of bacteria growth. The effect of tetracycline decreased the number of bacteria growth by nearly 20 times as much. It's difficult to identify exactly how many species are unaffected by tetracycline, but about 10 different species seemed to appear on the tetracycline plates than those who don't.

Part 2:

Tetracycline inhibits protein synthesis (Chopra). It protects against many gram positive and negative bacteria and atypical organisms(Chopra). Some bacteria that are typically sensitive and resistant to tetracycline are staphylococcal, streptococcal, and pneumococcal bacteria (Klajn).

Sources:

Chopra, Ian, and Marilyn Roberts. "Tetracycline Antibiotics: Mode of Action, Applications, Molecular Biology, and Epidemiology of Bacterial Resistance." Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews. American Society for Microbiology, June 2001. Web. 31 Jan. 2016. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC99026/>.

Klajn, Rafal. "Antimicrobial Properties." Tetracycline. Institute of Organic Chemistry, n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2016. <http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/tetracycline/antimicr.htm>.

Part 3:

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January 15, 2016

Exercise 1: Examining Biological Life at AU

General Characteristics: -Location: Transect 4 is located in front of the Gray Hall Entrance behind both the library and the SIS building. On the day of observation it was sunny but very frigid. -Topography: The 20x20 transect included a walkway with stepping stones, a fish pond area, a sitting bench, trees and bushes surrounding the designated walk space and small fish pond, and rocks surrounding the fish pond which were both real and fake. Soil, twigs, branches, acorns, and grass make up the ground. Three trees and three bushes are included throughout the area and surround the pond area. This transect is a wildlife observation area.

Ariel View Diagram:

http://openwetware.org/images/7/77/IMG_6139.JPG

Key for Ariel View Diagram:

• 1=Benches
• 2=Fish pond
• 3=Rocks surrounding pond
• 4=Stepping stone pathway
• 5=Tree's
• 6=Flower bushes
• 7= Tall weed grass
• 8=Twig bushes
• 9=Grass

Biotic:

• NOTE: Use numbers as reference for location in the ariel view diagram
• Trees (5)
• Flower Bush (6)
• Twig Bush (8)
• Grass (9)
• Fish (locate in pond #2)
• Water (in pond #2)

Abiotic:

• NOTE: Use numbers as reference for location in the ariel view diagram-Soil (Dispersed all throughout the 20x20 transect)
• Acorns (Dispersed all throughout the 20x20 transect)
• Laves (Dispersed all throughout the 20x20 transect)
• Rocks (3)
• Stepping Stone (4)
• Benches (1)
• Garden Statue (south corner of pond on rock)
• Wildlife sign (Past the furthest tree on the southeast side)

Additional Photos of Transect:

http://openwetware.org/images/e/e5/IMG_6133.JPG

• stepping stones, benches, and twig bushes

http://openwetware.org/images/b/b9/IMG_6125.JPG

• bench, tree, flower bushes, pond, rocks

http://openwetware.org/images/2/27/IMG_6107.JPG

• grass, leaves, twig branches

http://openwetware.org/images/3/34/IMG_6115.JPG

• tree, flower bushes, pond, rocks, bench

http://openwetware.org/images/a/a1/IMG_6120.JPG

• weed grass, bushes, rocks

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• pond, rocks, weed grass, flower bushes

January 24, 2016

Exercise 2: Hay Infusion Culture Observations

1.) The hay infusion culture collected from transect 4 smelled of decomposing feces. It also had a very dump/trash like smell. Its appearance looked of old murky water. The leaves, plants, grass, and dirt in the culture looked very wilted.

2.) On top of the culture was a white fuzzy mold like film showing some apparent life on the surface.

3) When drawing samples from the culture to determine two differing niches, niche one was located on the surface of the culture next to a tall piece of grass. Alternatively, niche two was located on the bottom of the culture next to a flower petal. Organisms may vary at different locations in the culture or next to different plants/leaves because organisms can be more adapted to certain environments than others. Some organisms may flourish or be more adapted in a bottom dweller environment in the culture next to a flower petal, while some other organisms may function better at the surface of the culture with grass surroundings.

4.) Protists and Algae present in culture:

• Protist:Difflugia
• located in niche 1
• 8.0 micrometers
• colorless, moved relatively fast, motile

• Protist: Blepharisma
• located in niche 1
• 45 micrometers
• pink/blue/purpleish
• cilia, motile
• http://openwetware.org/images/2/26/IMG_6159.JPG

• Algae: Euglena
• located in niche 1
• 5 micrometers
• green, spike like
• photosynthesizing
• flagella, motile
• http://openwetware.org/images/7/76/IMG_6164.JPG

• Protist: Stentor
• located in niche 2
• 10 micrometers
• blueish
• cilia, motile
• http://openwetware.org/images/2/26/IMG_6166.JPG

• Algae: Volvox
• located in niche 2
• 40 micrometers
• green
• photosynthesizing
• flagella, motile
• http://openwetware.org/images/4/41/IMG_6169.JPG

5.) The volvox meets all the needs of life because it shares the five fundamental characteristics. The volvox acquires and uses energy through photosynthesis because it absorbs light. Additionally, the Volvox is made of cells and is a eukaryotic protist that has organelles like protests and cilia. Volvox also contain genes and can replicate to form new Volvox sharing similar genes. Volvox replicate by coming to a stage where they lose motility and divide continuously during the reproductive phase. Lastly, Volvox continue to generate new cells in different types and sizes showing that the organism is a product of evolution and therefore meeting the five fundamental characteristics of life.

6.) If the hay infusion culture continued to grow for two months it would differ greatly from what it is currently. For organisms that are living in the appropriate environment they would continue to grow and most likely explore other niches of the culture. Because of this, some organisms would adapt to new environments and become fit for that environment, however other organisms may die off if not fit for new environments within the culture. Therefore, some organisms may dominate certain niches in the culture more than others. Instead of finding three or more different organisms in one niche, in two months it could be fewer organisms living in specific niches. The more organisms become more adventurous in exploring their surrounding environments, the more likely they are to die off or spread throughout the entire culture.

Exercise 2: Preparing and Plating Serial Dilutions

• Serial Dilution Procedure

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