Ecosphere Report by MCDC

<Ecosphere Report By MCDC>

Group 4 (Dayeon Jung, Wenyi Fu , Mariam Elias, Conner Laursen)

On April 4th, 2016, our group set up a self-sustaining ecosystem in a jar in order to observe how the ecosphere works; we all hope our ecosphere jar will persist, grow and possibly even flourish throughout the whole quarter. Before starting the experiment, our group carefully discussed what organisms that we would like to put in the ecosphere jar. During the experiment, we followed the procedure which provided by the instructor and recorded all the materials that were put into the ecosphere jar. Let’s take a look at the the results of our group’s ecosphere jar!

Materials

• Sand: 691.57g
• Gracel: 579.64g
• Soil: 1.15g
• Soil water + Pea: 2.50mL
• Pond Water: 39.39g
• Alga-Gro Freshwater: 2.30mL
• Aquatic Floating Fern (autotroph) : 1
• Mermaid (autotroph) : 3
• Snail (heterotroph) : 1
• Hay (autotroph)

Figure 1:Ecosphere Jar Set-up On April 11

As we can see, our ecosphere jar was very cloudy and dark when we first sat it up. This is because the soil was the last thing that we added. According to the material, we added a lot of organisms into our ecosphere jar but we could not see them clearly. Right after we put the snail into the jar, we barely could see it’s moving since the water was too dark. We sat the Mermaid with sand and soil and we put aquatic floating fern and . The size of the snail was normal and it moves pretty well. The only issue was the water was too dark to see the organisms.

Figure 2:Ecosphere Jar Set-up On April 13

After two days, the soil had finally settled and revealed the mini ecosystem within. Light was now able to reach anywhere in the jar and the life we introduced could thrive. We made slight adjustments on this day in terms of how the roots were resting. We planted them further in the sediment to allow them a better chance at life. The snail was observed and it was moving well. The snail looked ok and mermaid and aquatic floating fern looked fine.

Figure 3:Ecosphere Jar Set-up On April 20

The snail’s movement was slow but it was still alive. The aquatic floating fern and the mermaids still set on the soil and the pea. The water looked way cleaner than the one on first day. Also, the root parts of the fern grew a bit.

Figure 4:Ecosphere Jar Partial view On April 20

Figure 5:Ecosphere Jar Partial view On April 25

The snail is still alive and Mermaid and the aquatic floating fern keeps living. On that day, we compared our snail and other organisms with other group’s. The other group’s snail was dead already but ours was still alive and it was moving. We assumed that we put enough soil and pea and other stuffs for snail to live. The dark and blurry water got cleaner and everything was settled down.  

Figure 6:Ecosphere Jar Partial view On May 2

The aquatic floating fern and three mermaids are still alive. The water was pretty clean compared to the first day. The snail is still alive and it moves a bit. There were new moving organisms and they were moving all the time. The color of the aquatic floating fern is pretty clean green color.

Conclusion -  All the organisms we put on the first day are still alive even the snail. On the first day, our team thought we put too much soil and peas and we were worried the snail will be dead in few days. However, the water got cleaner and cleaner and the snail’s movement was pretty good. To breed living organisms was pretty interesting. Also, to observe it every week and to check which grew and which was dead was amazing.

The "Fun Gi's" Bio Ecosystem

On April 11th, the Fun-gis set out to create our very own ecosystem. We wanted it to be able to sustain the life of the various organisms we put in the sphere. We named it “Biology Bottom.”

Here is a look at the making of Biology Bottom:

The materials we used are as follows:

• 2 cups dirt (8 oz.)
• 2 cups sand (8 oz.)
• 2 cups gravel (8 oz.)
• 1 mermaid plant
• 1 bacopa
• 1 floating fern
• 2 ml anabaena
• 1 ml selenastrum
• 10 daphnia
• 1 snail “Gary”
• Mystery pond water

Organisms within the Ecosphere:

Ecosphere Ecosystem:

Our little ecosystem worked perfectly… until it didn’t. When the Fun-gis walked into class on April 20th, we expected everything to be normal, but that wasn’t the case. When we checked up on Biology Bottom, we noticed a horrible fact: Gary the snail had died! All that was left of him was his empty, algae-ridden shell.

Besides the death of Gary, our ecosystem was alright otherwise. Upon conducting some research, it might be proposed that Gary starved to death. There wasn’t all that much algae in the jar until after Gary’s passing, which is an important source of food. However, snails eat plants as well, so our poor snail’s death remains a mystery. It is also possible that the pond water harmed Gary. This is his shell on April 25th. The algae that surrounded his shell seems to have dissolved away by this time, perhaps eaten by the daphnia.

The organism that truly thrived in Biology Bottom is the daphnia. In the video below, you can see many of them swimming around.

We started with exactly 10 daphnia, but from the looks of it, they have started to reproduce. An exact number was hard to count because they moved around too much, and the glass jar made it hard to see, however, the number of daphnia seems to have surpassed 20 or even 30.

The next noticeable change to our ecosystem was the presence of algae caking the side of the jars. Without Gary to help clean, it seems algae could grow without any hindrance. The picture below was taken on May 6th. Before that, no one had noticed any algae growth.

The abundance of algae might have contributed to the booming population of daphnia since that is what they eat. Before there was algae, the daphnia most likely consumed the bacteria and algae (anabaena and selenastrum) that we put into the ecosystem. Since we used mystery pond water, there was probably a plethora of bacteria that the daphnia could have consumed.

All in all, our biospheres seems to be doing pretty well. Aside from the tragic passing of Gary the Snail, our daphnia and various autotrophs have thrived and will hopefully continue doing so.

The Ultimate Snail Pad [Ecosphere Blog #1]

Hey everyone!

We would like to introduce you to our ecosphere... The Ultimate Snail Pad! Other than our lovely snail, Gary, we have daphnia, plants, euglena, volvox, soil, gravel, and some hay. We chose water & minerals because with a pond water sample you don't know what kind of organisms are present and it would be hard to explain what may have contributed to each organism's outcome. Below is the photo of our ecosphere, the water is murky but cleared up for the most part. You can see Gary right beneath the waterline on the left.

Ecosphere Ecosystem

Here's what's happening in our ecosphere:

Light energy is captured by algae and plants which makes food and oxygen for the snail and daphnia. The daphnia and snail produce waste which is consumed by the bacteria. The waste is broken down into inorganic matter that may be utilized by algae and plants as nutrients. The bacteria, snail, and daphnia produce carbon dioxide which are also used by the algae and plants. Also, utricularia plants consume daphnia for additional nutrients. 

Ecosphere Fun Facts

• Utricularia are carnivorous plants. They have bladder-traps that suck in prey, such as daphnia, and dissolves the prey by digestive secretion. 
• SPOILER ALERT!!! All of our daphnia are now dead (X_X).
• Gary is a Ramshorn snail!!
• Ramshorn snails are one of the most common freshwater aquarium snails.
• Features: their shells have a coiled-rope appearance which varies between brown, reddish-brown, to black 
• Personality: tranquil and non-aggressive 
• Lifespan: up to 1-2 years
• Habitat: found in many freshwater aquatic habitats such as ponds, rivers, & lakes 
• Nutrients: dead or decaying plant matter, soft algae, & dead animal friends
• Reproduction: they are hermaphroditic and can reproduce asexually

References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utricularia
http://www.aquariumcarebasics.com/freshwater-snails/ramshorn-snail/
https://www.sargentwelch.com/assetsvc/asset/en_US/id/16920373/contents

Biosphere Post Numero Uno (By Karissa G., Karissa C., Jade, and Thinh

On April 11th 2016, we all became adoptive parents of Mr. Crabs the shrimp and Ellie the snail. With new additions to the family, we need to create a home for them. The features of their new crib included:

• 111.13 g of Soil
• 371.87 g of Gravel
• 100 mL of Nutrient Water (with the remaining being tap water)
• 2 mL of Anabaena
• 2 mL of Stentor
• 1 Mermaid Plant
• 1 Floating Fern
• 15 Daphnia
• 1 Shrimp
• 1 Snail.

Day One, April 11th: Here you can Mr. Crabs and Ellie in their new home. Unfortunately, the gravel didn't weigh down the soil enough so things got a little crazy. It was too murky to get a pic of the new additions. Only time would tell how well these combinations would all work out together. 

Day 10, April 20th: The soil has finally settled and the water still looks extremely clear. Mr. Crabs and Ellie seem very happy, but no sign of the Daphnia. It is possible that we have a very un-picky shrimp and he just happened to eat all of them (Don't worry, I googled it. It is possible for shrimp to eat the daphnia).

Day 15, April 25th: Happy Snail? Check. Happy Shrimp? Check.

Not much change over this weekend, All is good in the neighborhood.

Day 22, May 2nd: As you can see there is algae beginning to grow on the side of the jar. Why is this? Obviously the shrimp has gotten a bit lazy with cleaning his home. Maybe he ate too much, and that is also why he shed his exoskeleton as we can see in the second picture. Although he maybe not be cleaning the entire jar, it has obviously not stopped his growing. But where has the snail gone?

Day 24, May 4th: In the end, the water doesn't too terrible, still pretty clear considering we have been new parents for almost a month now. We still see the algae growing on the side. Small green dots growing on the side where the sun was hitting, and slightly on the roots of the floating fern. In the last picture, we can see we have a large, happy, healthy shrimp. Sadly though, we discovered the fate of Ellie. We can see Mr. Crabs paying his respects to the empty shell of Ellie. It would seem that she did not fare as well as the shrimp, but in all fairness, she could have already been an old soul when we met her. RIP Ellie, you are in a better place now. Over all, it would seem our little home did pretty well, but there may been something else we could have added to help keep the snail alive so that the algae could have been prevented more...But more on the later.

Eco-sphere Blog Post #1 by TGB

Authors: Gerar S, Vlad A, Patrick W, Nathaniel C.

Hey guys, it’s us again, the Good Boys back at it again to bring good news to you all!!!
            This time we were given the task to create an ecosphere where we could create an environment where organisms of our choice would potentially thrive. We had to first propose a food web of the organisms we chose to include in order to show their role in the environment and relationships among one another. Here is the list of organisms we included along with their quantities:

Contents	Amount
Nutrient Water	200mL
DI water	2L
Gravel	1 cup
Fine Sand	2 cups
Soil	97.23g
Volvox	2 drops
Selenastrum	2 drops
Ram Horn Snail	1 count
Daphnia	16 count
Mermaid	1 count
Bacopa	1 count

After choosing our organisms, we proposed the following food web to sustain them:

April 11th

 This is the first day of creating the ecosphere. There was a “natural disaster” from pouring in the water without fully compacting the soil beneath the gravel and sand, causing the murkiness of the water. We named our snail Jesse because it is a gender neutral name. All of our daphnia’s names start with “R.” Hopefully our organisms survive! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

April 20th

The water looks more clear, but no daphnia were seen! Jesse is happy and it looks like Jesse shed his/her shell.

April 25th

Turns out the shell was a baby! Jesse, you dawg. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)=ε✄ We named Jesse’s child Jr. The daphnia are still missing, but the water is clearer than ever. (⊙ᗜ⊙)

April 27th

Jesse continues to live happily and move around the ecosphere. ᕙʕಠᴥಠʔᕗ We also noticed a floating “plant”, seen in the middle picture.

May 2nd

Here is Nate disturbing the ecosphere. In the 2nd picture, we noticed that there were air bubbles along the bottom of our ecosphere, which we deduced to be a sign of microbial activity. The 3rd picture show’s Jesse is alive and well and the 4th picture shows Jr. almost the size of Jesse…
〳 ◉ ͜ʖ ◉ 〵

May 4th

More shell carcasses or more babies???? Jesse, you dawg (the carcasses are more babies, five to be exact). The rest of the ecosphere looked the same, but with more carcasses. There weren’t any additional algae growing along the sides of the ecosphere. The daphnia were still MIA. A reward was put out for their return. The reward is a pat on the back. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Bio Ecosphere [by JESK]

Authors: Emma Brasseur, Shane Hall, Jessica Roth, Karina Yu

Organism	Metabolism	Amount
Snail	Heterotroph	1 Snail
Shrimp	Heterotroph	1 Shrimp
Bacopa Plant	Autotrophic	1 Bacopa Plant
Aquatic Floating Fern	Autotrophic	1 Aquatic Floating Fern
Anabaena	Autotrophic	2.25 mL
Daphnia	Heterotrophic	4.75 mL

Table 1: Organisms and Metabolisms within Ecosphere

Other ecosphere contents include 43.07 g of soil, 910.16 g of gravel, 1600 mL of pond water, 700 mL of tap water, and 100 mL of nutrient solution.  Although groups utilizing pond water did not necessarily need to add a quantity of nutrient solution, our group decided to experiment with the effects of tap water, pond water, and nutrient solution mixture on our aquatic environment.  

Figure 1: Ecosphere Food Web

Video of Ecosystem

Figure 2: Decomposing Snail Photographed on 4/25/16

Figure 3: Ecosphere on 4/25/16

Figure 4: Water view of Ecosphere on 4/25/16, Visible Algae Growth

Figure 5: Ecosphere on 4/27/16

Figure 6: Ecosphere on 5/4/16

Figure 7: Shrimp on 5/4/16

Figure 8: Shrimp and Decomposing Snail on 5/4/16

On April 11th , we started our ecosystem. The nutrients we put into the large jar are seen above in Table 1.  After putting them in, we screwed the lid on and placed it by the window. Screwing the lid on tightly probably was not such a great idea as this may be a possible reason why our poor snail disintegrated.  However, in the following lab, we unscrewed the jar so the lid would be slightly loose in order to relieve the pressure buildup within our ecosphere.

Nevertheless, we noticed some changes within our ecosystem in the next labs to follow:

• Algae growth on the sides
• Snail died
• Shrimp became a little more lively (it was very limp when we first put it in)

So overall, our ecosystem is happy and healthy, and we are eager to see how it will continue in its growth.