Enriched culture of Microspora freshwater green algae.

[charlie g]

From time to time a stable and simple indoor enriched filamentous green algae culture container ( a stable microcosm) gives communities of protists and meiofauna to enjoy...an indoor ecosystem!

A sample tuft of this nearly pure culture of green algae was treated with a simple starch test, to verify the Genus: Microspora is the plant...and not Genus: Trebonema. The patch of algae filaments grows quite dense..and nearly lifts out of the culture container as the complete algae bloom.

A throng of Ostracod, and claudoceran water fleas thrive within the dense matt of this Microspora filamentous green algae. The resident duckweed plants, and the numerous snails are part of this rather stable ( over three months maintained with a daily light cycle, added stream water periodically) microcosm. I have not really systematically explored the container bottom sediments...I've solely been attentive to the nearly pure algae population, this dense algae matt has regrown after a sequence of three near total harvests of this Microspora 'forest'.

I have the room and quite enjoy this stable community...for me this is a variation of the bonsai plant assemblage stewardship. Charlie guevara

[charlie g]

With light microscopy...my 1986 algae text insists a starch test is needed to distinguish Genus: Microspora from Genus: Trebonema ( "a biology of the algae", philip sze, 1986, page: # 94... the publishers printing this text with lower case title..I've seen this 'style' of printing numerous times...I'm curious about this fashion!). My wonderful (very low cost text, beautiful illustrations..consider this text folks!) 1950 text: " The Fresh-Water Algae of the United States", Gilbert M. Smith, page # 397..this author and phycologist asserts Trebonema algae never store starches..they store oils or granules of leucosin. So I added a tuft of this near pure algae to a tube of boiling water, I decanted that hot water and added ethyl alcohol to the algae..immersed this tube in a glass of boiling water..the alcohol boiled briskly...Never do this boiling of alcohol near any flame! I gently shook the tube sample of algae in the hot alcohol...chlorophyll began leeching from the filaments into the fluid alcohol.

The tuft of algae lifted to a large depression slide..washed with water a few cycles..then a few drops of store bought 10% Providone Iodine (1% titratable iodine) added to this algae sample for 10 minutes (length of time is not critical for this simple starch test).

Sure enough, the blue-black color of starch+ iodine complex evident as you look at the sample. The reaction is actually a linear complex of three iodine ions nested inside the huge spiral chain molecules of starch. For me it quite pleasing to have starch laden algae filaments ( when iodine stained these individual filaments evident to unaided eyes), and knowing those filaments in photosynthetic performance generated oxygen bubbles right under my coverslip slide mounts when the filaments were alive, and now a lot of the photoreactive molecules of chlorophyll leeched ( an extraction processing of the algae by the hot alcohol after earlier boiling water treatment of this plant.). My microscopy world views merged the energy storage product starch, the reactive molecules of chlorophyll by which this algae made the starches, and the pleasant oxygen bubbles I so often induce in live algae when my microscopes illumination bathes the algae...so I reached for my green laser to see if the alcohol extracted algae chlorophyll would be excited to autofluorescence red color...a path of pleasing red were the green laser beam passed through and excited the alcohol weak solution of chlorophyll molecules! Charlie guevara

[charlie g]

This algae stores starches, it' generated oxygen bubbles, it's chlorophyll molecules are induced to pleasing red autofluorescence, I have a stable microcosm community ready to host any hydras I may encounter this year, yes yes! Charlie guevara

[Hobbyst46]

Nice photos.

The red fluorecence of chlorophylls and similar molecules is always fascinating. Such fluorescence is one of the tools to authenticate extra virgin olive oils... such oils contain a lot (relatively) of chlorophylls.

What is the best (and easily available) mounting media for alga for non-temporary slides, without fading of the green color? I have used (a) 75% fructose and (b) glycerol. Both preserve some of the pigments. Is there a better medium?

[charlie g]

A community with Microspora as anchor dominant plamt.

[charlie g]

It is impressive to me that these epiphytes which grow attached to the algae host filaments...endured boiling water, then boiling alchohol treatment! Charlie guevara

[charlie g]

Nice photos.

The red fluorecence of chlorophylls and similar molecules is always fascinating. Such fluorescence is one of the tools to authenticate extra virgin olive oils... such oils contain a lot (relatively) of chlorophylls.

What is the best (and easily available) mounting media for alga for non-temporary slides, without fading of the green color? I have used (a) 75% fructose and (b) glycerol. Both preserve some of the pigments. Is there a better medium?

Thank you, Hobbyst46 for the tip on extra virgin olive oil reaction to induction of chlorophyll auto fluorescence! I,m pointing my green laser into our kitchen bottle of such olive oil..this evening!

I never looked into color stability of non-stained algae specimen preserved slides. Each autum 'leaf-drop season' here in finger lakes/NY we have variations on fall color behaviors of our northeastern trees. Fall'17 was a rather bland fall-color show...experts said it due weather conditions leading up to fall'17.

I mention this, Hobbyst46 as those pigments changes in our fall color seasons are analogus to your intrest in no 'color changes' in pigments of your chlorophyll imbued plant slides. Chlorophyls being photoreactive pigments..for me it makes sense that you will have color instabilitieswith exposures to intense illumination of such molecules ( as when a blast of a microscopes light path bathes the plant and it's pigments)...hmm..a botanical 'fixative for the color facile plant pigments'..sounds like an impossible quest...your better off with 'image captures'...but what is the 'natural ambient illumination of the pigmented organisms in our worlds blizzard of ambient light regimes?!! Charlie Guevara BTW...does 'structural green colors of insect shells and bird feathers prove more lasting than plant pigment color blends due the insects and birds are not manifesting photoreactive colors schemes?

[Hobbyst46]

Charlie

Regretfully I am neither a botanist nor biochemist, I only thought that inside the relative shelter (from light and oxygen) of the slide, if the plant tissue does not undergo rapid disintegration and chemical changes, the chloroplasts and their content would be preserved for ... a few years?

My alga sample is mounted in glycerol, or fructose, and to my eyes they are fairly intact...6 months now.

[Bufo Bill]

Very nice work. The pictures are great, and the work that they illustrate is fascinating. Thanks for posting.

Bill.

[einman]

Very nice.

[Crater Eddie]

Great! My friends think I'm crazy for getting excited at finding a patch of filamentous algae.
CE

[charlie g]

Thanks, Bufo ( our Bufo americanus we greet as: 'Mister Toad'..an homage to tender children story books), einman, CE, and Hobbyst46 for your interest and cheer. I guess that strong sugar solutions will stabilize water based pigments for a relative longtime...I guess the sugars eventually crystalize..the light conduction paths of such slides become obscured by crystal formations...my guess only, Hobbyst46. Charlie Guevara BTW last night we enjoyed the strong blue-white light of our lunar 'super moon'!

[charlie g]

Active water fleas abound within the dense Microspora bloom. I look forward to introducing other meiofauna to this rather stable microcosm. Please consider home indoor stable microcosms for relaxation and microscopy! Charlie Guevara BTW our US NASA program develops stable algae/meiofauna assemblages for 'off earth' biosystems for human long duration space flight existence.

[billbillt]

What an interesting study!.. Thanks for sharing...