Here's our final ecosphere post! Just wanted to give a little update on our Snail pad... We had a SNAILPLOSION!!! We very happy to announce Gary had many many many snail babies.
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| Gary (bottom left) with some snail babies |
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| A closer look at the larger snails in the ecosphere |
We wanted to compare an ecosphere that had a snail as well as most ingredients in common. Both of our ecospheres have water, minerals, gravel, soil, hay, mermaid plants (MCDC has one extra), and a snail. The differences in our ecosphere is that we included euglena, volvox, utricularia, and daphnia whereas MCDC included sand, pond water, & an aquatic floating fern. MCDC's ecosphere piqued our interest because their snail's reproduction quite different than ours.
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Almost Cool’s Ecosphere
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MCDC’s
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Snails like Gary (Ramshorn snail) can reproduce asexually very rapidly if there is an abundant source of food. Since snails eat mostly dead or decaying matter and algae, we believed our ecosphere supported Gary very well because we included good amount of hay as well as dead daphnia that were more than likely eaten by utricularia. In comparison, MCDC's ecosphere did not include as much hay or any other heterotrophs therefore provided their snail with a smaller selection of food sources. Another difference was our water, it seems lately our water is yellow and MCDC's is very clear. We hypothesize that the relocation of our ecosphere created a bloom of either volvox, euglena, and algae or a combination of them. We are curious to see what happens to our ecospheres now that both have baby snails. We hope that our ecosystem will not crash because of the overpopulation of snails.
Hey guys! Congrats on the snail babies! I also had no idea snails ate mostly dead/decaying matter, that's interesting. That makes them excellent for a closed system like an ecosphere or even fish tanks. Also, do you think relocation affected the bloom of algae due to light exposure, or something else like temperature? I think it'd be cool to see what your water looks like (i.e. what organisms are found in it) under a microscope now that it's yellow.
ReplyDeleteHi Guys,
ReplyDeleteI think it is a great choice to compare the ecosphere with MCDC. This is because I am the member from MCDC. Indeed, our group does not have baby snails like the other groups with snails at frist. However, the last time we found that the baby showed up was on May 7, although all the baby snails were very small and hard to find. I think the reason is our nail has not adapt to the new environment at frist. However, after almost a month, the snail might adjust itself and start to reproduce. Anyway, great job!
Hey guys,
ReplyDeleteI loved watching the change of your ecosphere over time! Our group had snails as well, but our snail did not have as many babies as early as yours did. However, our ecosphere only had one snail for weeks then had many snails later in the ecosphere project. This difference in snail population may be to the difference between our plants and organisms which were included in the ecosphere. One big similarity I see in the ecospheres with snails versus those without snails is the clairty of the water. The ecospheres with snails had much clearer water, which could be due to the feeding patterns of the snails.
Great post guys!
I loved your guys ecosphere. Every time I checked on my groups ecosphere I also looked at yours to see if there were even more snails! Our snail died almost immediately but we did have a couple of babies sprout up a week or two later to our surprise. Those babies have now also died - so perhaps we should have added more materials similar to yours and maybe we would have had more success with our snails!
ReplyDeleteCongrats with the snailPLOSION! We experienced the same phenomena in our ecosphere as well. I think it has to do with the type of water used. We used nutrient water and experienced snailPLOSION, you guys did as well. MCDC group used pond water and their reproduction was stunted. So I think it all n=boils down to the type of water used.
ReplyDeleteDo I even have to say it? You're guys ecosphere went crazy! Could it have been all the plants? I remember Gwen mentioning that the snails liked to have more of the hay and stuff in the jar. It would be very interesting to do an experiment seeing how snails do in jars with different levels of plants. This would also explain why your snails did slightly better than MCDC's. Your jar had more plants and more food for the snail to thrive off. I agree that it would be very cool to see how these ecospheres did if we let them continue to grow.
ReplyDeleteHey guys,
ReplyDeleteGood job on producing all the snail babies, pretty cool stuff. It seemed that the water you used was different then other groups with snails and yours did better so many that has something to do with it. Our snail died and then was like resurrected and then died again. Im jealous. Good job with the post though.