Tuesday, Nov. 13-Week 5

1: The overall environment of my Microaquarium seems calmer and less active. There are still lots of vorticella (on the moss), diatoms (spread through any open space in aquarium), and cyanobacteria (filaments have also spread out everywhere in aquarium).

2: The nematode population is most dense this week--I viewed at least 50 nematodes, squirming in place, concentrated at the bottom and around the moss, but scattered throughout the aquarium.

3: There seems to be less rotifer activity, most of the smaller rotifer species have died off, though the cyclops population still seems strong; there are more baby cyclops than adult cyclops.

4: PROTONEMA: I was able to identify protonemata extending off of the moss today! The green/brown network of long filamentous multi-celled structures are differentiable from cyanobacteria in that the cell walls are at diagonal, not perpendicular, angles with the filaments. The earliest stage of the bryophyte life cycle, these haploid structures develop out of spores, and will soon grow into the leafy gametophyte. This is exciting, I get to see what we're learning about (moss life cycles) in action!















^protonemata