Week 5: Final Observation

The final week has come in the observation of the organisms in my MicroAquarium. There is now significantly less activity in the microaquarium this week. Many of the organisms I have identified over the past month are now either in significantly less numbers or missing entirely from my observations. I would assume this is due to the organisms exhausting their food sources within the small environment created for them. The organisms I was able to see this week were mainly rotifers, amoebas, and paramecium. Dr. McFarland did assist me in the identification of one new organism this week, a difflugia.I did not notice any movement out of the organism during my observation so at this time I am unsure as to what it feeds on. I only noticed the difflugia in one section of my microaquarium and it was surrounded by 7 others of the same species. The difflugia can be seen in the photo below. Also to note the diffugia is surrounded by diatoms, it could be possible that they are a food sources for the difflugia as there are many directly around the organism.

Also this week I found what Dr. Mcfarland told me to be the body skeleton of a Cyclops. I identified a juvenile cyclops  in my observations last week and this week I discovered the discarded exo-skeleton of a mature cyclops which can also be seen in the photos below.