Week 5: Last Week

This week there were quite a few obvious differences other than those observed using the microscope. The water level was noticeably lower and the aquatic plants were faded in color and starting to break up like pre-decomp sorta. Similarly the soil and silt at the bottom was gray in color and grainy, seeming like it may be nutrient poor or depleted. Using the microscope i noticed a vast increase in spirogyra, both in number and in size. Also there was a significant increase in desmatodes and colonial green alga. The increase in these photosynthetic microorganisms I believe is due to the more abundant photons and CO2 as the plants die and are no longer competing for the same resources. There were hardly any rotifers, especially considering they were everywhere the first 4 weeks. They seem to have been beat out by the paramecium, as they were abundant in every field of view. The nematodes were few in number yet those surviving were far larger than those observed in weeks past. No new species of microorganisms were discovered in this final week.