Mystery TSA Dish Bacteria Post by Kyle

Figure1. illusatrates bacterial growth the agar plates at room temperature and body temperature throughout day 1, day 2, and day 7

Introduction

Bacteria are known to play a key role in the ecosystem with respect to their abundancy. The primary objective of this lab is to explore into the abundancy of bacteria in multiple environments. Therefore, the investigation was devised to account for the presence of bacteria in two different types of habitats and temperatures. The habitats encompass a random area under a shoe and the liquid from coughing. The two different temperatures were 24 C (i.e. room temperature) and 37C(i.e. normal human body temperature). It is hypothesized that there would generally be more bacteria at for both habitats at 37 C  than 24 C due to the fact that various enzymes work best at this temperature. Furthermore, there would more bacteria found under the shoe because it is an area that received the least cleaning.  

Results from day 2

With regards to those bacteria stored at room temperature, there seem to be 8 colonies that were related to those extracted from the area under the shoe meanwhile there seem to be no colonies presence for the bacteria extracted from coughing.  Furthermore, the bacteria stored at human body temperature thrived much more than those stored at the room temperature. Specifically, there were 27 colonies for those related from the under shoe and 9 colonies related to coughing. Unfortunately, it is not feasible to identify types of colonies due to the fact that all of the colonies are uniformly yellow-brown.  

As it is implied, the results from day 3 were not surprising and importantly, they fundamentally support the hypothesis stated above. 

Results from day 7

Based upon the observations, 37 colonies that belonged to the bacteria extracted from the area under shoe and stored at the room temperature were observed. The numbers of colony still remained at 0 for the bacteria extracted from coughing and stored at the room temperature. Furthermore, it is also observed that at the room temperature, there was more diversity of bacteria found in the area under the shoe. In this case, the number of colonies presence in the dish was determined by the number of different color of colonies. The color includes yellow-brown, orange, yellow, pink, yellow, red, green and brown. This represents a total of eight different types of bacterial colony.

 In relation to those bacteria stored at the body temperature, a lawn of bacteria was observed. Nevertheless, the colonies that were found from coughing were not observed in this day 7. This might be resulted by the TSA competition between the bacteria extracted from coughing and the area under the shoe. In this case, bacteria from the area under the shoe might have won the competition. Moreover, the number of types of colony found in the dish stored at the body temperature was less by two types of colonies including pink and brown colonies. This less in the diversity might be due to the fact that the pink and brown colonies were less adapted to a higher temperature condition.

The image below illustrates the colonies observed via a stereo microscope.

Figure 2. displays the colonies observed under a stereo microscope

Moreover, each colony shown in figure 2. seem to be surrounded by a distinct layer of lighter colored material.  I would identify that this may represent either the biofilm or lighter density of the bacterial concentration.