WinoColumn from Voidomatis river

Winogradsky column
3 months

Hello everyone, 

my name is Gogo Kokkou and I'm an undergraduate biology student in the University of Ioannina. Here is my winogradsky column 3 months after I received it. It was made at Voidomatis river. The date of the experiment was at 23/10/2015. 

My column  contains enrichment substrates, like pieces of paper, 1 egg with its shell and 1/2 sachet of baking powder. I mixted these ingredients with mud and I put it in the bottle up to the 1/4 of it. Then I added only mud up to the 2/3 of the bottle and some water from the river.

 Unfortunately, I don't have a picture from the first day of the experiment, but there isn't much difference. At first, I expected the column to change colour because of the growth of cyanobacteria and other kind of phytoplankton but only the water became blur. Probably, I have to wait longer in order to see some difference.

I will be back with a new post if I have any changes!

Greetings

Winogradsky column from a low temperature river!

Greetings from Ioannina,
   
     We are Christina Renta and Stephania Tsola from the department of Biological Applications and Technology. We decided to conduct a joint experiment by creating two Winogradsky columns from the river Voidomatis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voidomatis). The river has an average temperature of 4^oC and knowing that, we decided to test where the column microorganisms would grow faster, in room temperature or conditions mimicking the river ie. 4^oC (fridge). The columns, on 23/10/2015, were made in 2L and 1.5L plastic bottles, where 1/3 was filled with mud mixted with our enrichment materials (one whole egg,with shell, 10g baking powder and newspaper cuttings). Extra mud was poured in the bottles until 2/3 of the way followed by river water. 
     No sunlight access in the fridge meant that the two columns couldn't be accurately compared, to bypass that we decided to place the room temperature column in a black plastic bag.

Room temp column
First day

Fridge column
First day

     The photos show the columns on the first day and twelve weeks after the experiment started. After three weeks the fridge column was opened and we found out that sulfur-reducing bacteria were living in our column and producing H₂S resulting in a rotten egg smell. Other than that, the column didn't change in appearance. 
     In the room temperature column, activity was first observed four weeks into the experiment in the form of the gelatinous mass that can still be seen after twelve weeks. Two weeks after that, a weak oil smell appeared which only grew in strength. The mass and the smell helped us understand that sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and/or iron bacteria lived in our column. Both these bacteria are known to create that particular smell and dark slime. 
     The results so far helped us come to the conclusion that the microorganisms in the fridge column were able to appear sooner possibly due to conditions resembling the in situ ones.

Room temp column
12 weeks

Fridge column
12 weeks

     The next step in our experiment is transfering both the columns to a sunlight accessible place whilst still           retaining the temperature conditions in order to compare     the two columns on a phototrophic level. 

Thanks for reading!
May the Winoforce be with you!     

    

The River-WinoColumn

 The River-WinoColumn

Hello everyone,

         my name is Thomas Gkouletsos, an undergraduate Biology student in University of Ioannina in Greece. That's my Winogradsky Column (River-WinoColumn, RWC), which was constructed from a mixture of mud and water on 23/10/2015. I received the mud and the water from Voidomatis river. Exactly, the origin of the mud is from tree roots near the river bank. The RWC also contains substrates for enrichment. These are pieces of newspaper and leafs which were under the trees at the same place with the mud(soil). Furthermore, i placed an egg with its shell in the column,  the same time with the mud-water mixture, 1/2 powder from a baking powder sachet, and a banana without its peel. I added mixture until the 2/3 of the bottle to be filled up with water and the RWC was ready. I stored the RWC in my house (almost steady temerature 20 oC), next to the eastern window where the column was exposed to sunlight. 

         Today, after 86 days, the RWC has a bright red shade which is a result from a popuation of purple non-sulfur bacteria or/and purple sulfur bacteria. We can also observe a light green zone at the upper layer of the water which contains the biofilm. This zone probably owes its colour to Cyanobacteria.

         My goal is to observe different zones (with different shades) in the RWC over the time, as the biological processes in the column continue. 

        We will have more results here, stay focused!!!

T.G.

Winogradsky column, Department of Biological Applications & Technology, Ioannina

Hello ,
our names are Christina Liagou and Zacharaki Panagiota and we are studying biology in Ioannina. This experiment conducted in order to observe the presence of microorganisms in our Winogradsky columns.The ingredients we used in each column were: 1 whole egg(source of CaCO3 and S), pieces of paper(source of C) and baking powder (source of S). These ingredients were mixed with mud that was taken from Voidomatis river (23^th October 2015).We filled the bottles with 1/3 enriched sediment and the rest of them with extra mud and water from the river.We placed one column in the light and one other in the dark (both in room temperature) ,in order to distinguish differences between these conditions.Here we present our results!

1st day
In the left side is the dark column, and in the right side is the one placed in the light.

22/11: We notice some Fe production in both columns as we can observe orange and black colour in the dark and light column respectively.

       

15/1:This time we can observe that the sediment is getting even more darker in both cases and that the bottles are swelled so we can assume the activity of microorganisms.

Winogradsky column, Department of Biological Applications & Technology, Ioannina

Hello everyone,

our names are Alvanou Nikoleta and Vardaka Panagiota and we are students of the department of biological applications and technology in Ioannina. We created three Winogradsky columns(1.5L each) in order to observe the bacterial growth in different temperatures and light conditions. The samples have been taken from Voidomatis river. Firstly, in all three columns we added mud mixtured with shredded parer as carbon source, an egg with its shell, 1/2 tea spoon soda and 25g baking powder as sulfur source and these ingredients covered 1/3 of the each bottles . Then we filled other 1/3 of each bottle with extra mud and added water from the river leaving some free space on the top. After that one of the columns was placed in the fridge in -12oC, the other one was placed in the balcony so it can be exposed to the sunlight (0-10oC), and the last one was covered with a black bag so its development wont be affected by the light (17-19oC). After three months in the first column was observed no development, at the second one the observed development was less than the expected and at the third one the development was not important as we expected.

The First column (-12oC)

The Second Column (light)

The Third Column (dark)