User:Tyler L. Faulkner/Notebook/Biology 210 at AU
Hay Infusion Culture:
Our transect is the garden at the northwest side of campus near the tennis courts. Many of the vegetation there now is dead or has weeds growing in their planters. However, many of the planting boxes do have labels of what type of crop is grown there. For example, some that we saw was lettuce and cauliflower. Abiotic factors: sunlight, soil, water, temperature, moisture, wind Biotic factors: worms, birds, other organisms, weeds
When we opened up our Hay Infusion Culture, surprisingly our culture did not smell bad. In fact, it smelt like fresh soil and natural. At the bottom of our jar was the buildup of dirt and on top was the water. On the top layer, we did not notice any type of mold or green shoots, however there was an apparent thin layer on the top of our water.
Pictures of our Hay Infusion Culture:
After using our dichotomous key we discovered Colpidium was present on the bottom layer of our culture. It wasn't very big, and was actually only 50μm. The top layer also had a Colpidium and was 30μm.
The Colpidium colpoda are ciliate protozoa, who are commonly found in freshwater environments. We assume that the Colpidium were found in our transect because it is a vegetable garden and with freshwater and soil.
In the middle layer we found a Euglena, which was much larger than the Colpidium found in both the bottom and top layer. The Euglena measured 450μm. Euglena are flagellate protists and are very small and long. They are unique organisms because they are to some sorts a combination of both a plant and animal, which causes them to fall in between the Animal and Plant Kingdom. However, because of this very hard distinction, scientist have place them in the Protist Kingdom.
Serial dilution procedure:
After conducting our serial dilution we found that the plates with the tetracycline inhibited the growth of bacteria better than the plates without.
| Dilution | Agar Type | # Colonies on Plate | Conversion Factor | Colonies/mL |
| 10^-3 | Nutrient | 134 | x10^3 | 134,000 |
| 10^-5 | Nutrient | 55 | x10^5 | 5,500,000 |
| 10^-7 | Nutrient | 23 | x10^7 | 230,000,000 |
| 10^-9 | Nutrient | 21 | x10^9 | 21,000,000,000 |
| 10^-3 | Nutrient + Tet | 3 | x10^3 | 3,000 |
| 10^-5 | Nutrient + Tet | 1 | x10^5 | 100,000 |
| 10^-7 | Nutrient + Tet | 0 | x10^7 | 0 |
| 10^-9 | Nutrient + Tet | 0 | x10^9 | 0 |
