Organisms observed, roughly in order of the amount of things I have to say about them:
1. Oscillatoria - colony of photosynthetic bacteria, found in long green strands, I'd say there are probably 100+ of such colonies in my microaquarium. One or two of them were coiling into themselves into knots, which was weird/exciting, and Professor McFarland said that he'd never seen them do that before. I asked if he thought this behavior was stress related, to which he responded that they seemed actually quite happy. I'm not sure how they move, they kind of swayed this way and that.
2. Actinosphaerium - protist, resembled a sea urchin, quite a few of these guys but they weren't everywhere. I only observed them floating around, but I think they were moving under their own power; the book says that they move by use of pseudopods.
3. Diatoms - eukaryotic algae, most that I could identify readily as diatoms were diamond shaped <>, but I found a rectangular one as well. There were a lot of them in my microaquarium, but they mostly just floated around at a moderate speed. I caught an amoeba absorbing one. Obviously these guys aren't the top of the food chain.
4. Amoeba - protozoan, appeared as amourphous blob with monstrous appendages. Moved using pseudopods, there are a fair number of them. I thought these guys were pretty gross, until I found one sneaking up and eating a diatom. Then my opinion of them rose drastically.
5. Vorticella - protozoan, appeared as a long stem, coiled on one end with a teacup on the other end covered in rapidly moving cillia. These stayed were they were, there were a moderate amount present, and they look like they might do something interesting, we'll see.
6. Paramecium - cilliate protozoa, colorful and fast. A lot of these guys were running into and out of frame constantly even as I observed other more interesting species. I probably won't think very highly of them until I see them eat something.
7. Euglena - protist, slow-moving and green. Presumably by their green color and lack of motion they sit around and photosynthesize. Only found a few, though there might be more that I simply passed over looking for things thatactually move.
8. Bursaria - cilliate protozoan, move pretty quickly, they look off balance with all of their organelles in three-quarters of their cytoplasm with a big empty area that the book tells me is a sort of micro-funnel. There were a moderate number of these.
9. Rotifer - an animal, long with a rotor at the end. I got a pretty good profile view of one of these and took a picture and video of it, which I'll try and email myself, probably next week. Nice action with the rotor, hopefully I'll observe them do something else. Less of these than the other rotifer.
10. Other Rotifer - also an animal, looks like an earwig. I'll have to classify this and distinguish it better, but this one was moving around rapidly and making itself a nuisance, I ran out of time to further classify it and the other rotifer. A middling amount of these.
10. Nematoads - clear wormlike animals also called roundworms, lots and lots of these worming their way around. I did not observe them doing anything interesting to make up for their ugliness.
11. A lot of other organisms - no time to I.D. all of them, I tried to get the most interesting. There's always next week.
Water Source:
10 Water pool below spring. Fountain City Park west of Broadway at Hotel Ave. Knox Co. Knoxville TN. . Full shade exposure Spring Feed Pond N36 02.253 W83 55.986 990 ft 10/13/2008
Plants:
A. Amblystegium varium (Hedw.) Lindb. Moss. Collection from: Natural spring. Fountain City Park west of Broadway at Hotel Ave. Knox Co. Knoxville TN. Partial shade exposure. N 36o02' 15.18" W083o55' 59.95"988 ft. 10/13/2008
B. Utricularia vulgaris L. Flowering Plant. A carnivous plant. Collection from: Greenhouse in White Ave Biology Annex. The University of Tennessee. 1400 White Ave. Knox Co. Knoxville TN.Partial shade exposure N 35o57' 33.45" W083o55' 42.01". 932 ft 10/13/2008
