Hi everyone!
This is our first post about Winogradsky Column. We are three students of 1st Biotechnology of the University of Cádiz (UCA), Group A2.
Firstly, we are going to write the “ingredients” which we poured into our bottle on 4th March 2015
-We took sand from Río San Pedro’s beach ( A river that flows next to our university ).
-After diluting in water and mixing, added some pieces of filter paper (which contains cellulose).
-Moreover, Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and Iron Sulfate II (FeSO4) were also added.
All those substances were put into an Aquarius bottle, and finally, 3 or 4 cm of water were added above the sediment.
The first week, one of our partners carried the column to her home and it underwent some changes while it was in a room where was hit by sunlight on one side for 5 hours per day.
Day 2 (6th March): Little worms have grown on the surface and some dark spots appears in the not sun-exposed area.
Day 3 (7th March): Worms have passed away and the dark spots remain in the not sun-exposed zone. Nevertheles, some orange filaments start to emerge. We consider that filaments are produced by purple non-sulphur photoheterotrophs.
Day 5 (9th March): Black spots keep in both sides of the bottle and the orange filaments continue growing up.
Day 8 (12th March): After a week of the experiment, there have appeared some shells on the sediment surface. These shells are due to the calcium carbonate we added. However, when it ran out, the shells couldn’t continue growing and had to pass out.
After that week, another member of our group received the column and it was placed in the corner of a courtyard. However, there have been rainy days and the column hasn’t experiment changes apparently. We believe that this could be because of the low temperatures and the lack of sun light. Moreover the air humidity has increased his level and this could be another factor by which there aren’t visible organisms in our Winogradsky column.
Day 12 (16th March) The liquid phase has turned into a intense orange due to the iron from the iron sulfate and the orange filaments are disappearing at the same time the shells die.
Day 12 (16th March) The liquid phase has turned into a intense orange due to the iron from the iron sulfate and the orange filaments are disappearing at the same time the shells die.
Day 16 (20th March) This is the ending of the third week since we created the column and the intense orange isn’t as intense as the 12th day. Besides, the orange strands have disappeared completely. In contrast, algae and several aerobic bacteria live above the water.
Hope to keep on posting soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment