Algae & Diatoms

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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Ken Ramos
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Algae & Diatoms

Post by Ken Ramos »

Mountain wetlands can offer a multitude of things to observe through the microscope. Spring not having arrived there as early as down here in the foothills, the trees have not put on leaves as of yet and so, some of the wetland areas are not shaded and algae's are in full bloom in some of the slow moving waters due to abundant sunlight and warm temps.

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Chaetophora was one of the most abundant and common filamentous and branching algaes to be found in the mountain wetlands around at Boone Fork, Julian Price Memorial Park, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway heading north to Boone, N.C. It is nice to know that this area is protected because so many of our wetlands are disappearing these days.

Image

Diatoms and desmids abound in these areas and it is not uncommon to find masses of Tabellaria in sometimes long broken chains when examining samples taken from the area.

Image

This I am not particularly sure of but I am assuming Melosira :-k What ever the species it was interesting to run across in the samples. :D
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rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Ken, I don't know beans about green stuff that floats around in water, but from a photographic standpoint, I like these a lot. Compositions and colors are pleasing to my eyes at first glance, and they have lots of crisp detail to study when I look closer. I suppose that some may find the OOF stuff in the background to be distracting, but I like it there for context.

Nice, nice... :D

--Rik
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Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Lots of green stuff always seems to sooth the savage beast. I don't know a great deal about them either, only what I have happened to read up on here and there but they sure are pretty to look at and there is always the chance of finding some new, odd, and intersting looking creature among them. However in this case the most interesting and the most fun was getting out to collect them and you can't never tell what other things you may encounter out prowling around in a swamp. :lol:

Thanks Rik :D
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ralfwagner
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Post by ralfwagner »

Ken,

concerning your third pic. This is for sure not Melosira but probably the filamentous Desmid Hyalotheka dissilens. It is characterised by a thick layer of gelantine surrounding the filament. With darkfield or oblique you should see it. Here for comparison one of my Hyalotheka pics: http://www.dr-ralf-wagner.de/Bilder/Hya ... ens-HF.jpg
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Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Thanks Ralf. I was not sure what it was and to be honest, I was doubtful of it being Melosira also. However I was sure that someone would probably recognize it and come forth with a positive ID. Thanks again Ralf :D
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