Week Four

This week in the biology lab, I found another cyanobacteria to be present amidst all the Nostoc. I was lucky enough to see some "Scyntonema." This cyanobacteria comes from the Scyntonemataceae family. I have found two online pictures to depict this cyanobacteria's famous feature of false-branching. In these pictures you can see how two trichomes meet and seeming grow into each other. Also, in the second picture you can see the heterocysts present in the cyanobacteria. The first two links go with the pictures, respectively. The final link has some interesting information about nitrogen-fixation and about lichens.

http://www.msu.edu/course/bot/423/AlgalMaster.html
http://vis-pc.plantbio.ohiou.edu/algaeimage/pages/Scytonema.html
http://www.biology.duke.edu/bio265/Archive/1999/czcf/scytonema.html

*I added a little bit of water to the microcosm this week.*