Day 0:
I divided the dish into four sections and tested to see the growth of bacteria on the lab table, lab sink handle, my shoes, and my cell phone. There were two TSA plates, one was incubated at 24°C and the other at 37°C
Figure 1: TSA plate on Day 0
After the plates were incubated for 3 days, as you can see that the plate incubated at 37°C showed more growth of bacteria than the plate at room temperature (Figure 2 and 3). From looking at both plates, I was surprised to see that there were no growth on the lab table and my cell phone at room temperature while there were growth on the plate at 37°C
At 37°C At Room Temperature (24°C)
Figure 2 and 3: TSA plates on Day 2
Day 7:
After incubating for one week, the plate at 37°C still showed the most growth than the plate at room temperature. As comparing with my lab mates, bacteria grows more on the warmer place, which was the plate at 37°C. Since there were a lot of growth on the plate at 37°C, it was very hard for me to count how many colonies there were. On the other hand, the plate at room temperature is very easy to identify. Based on the results of the experiment, I see that my shoes had the most growth compare to other three samples, which I'm not really surprised because I use the shoes to go to many different places. As comparing both plates, I noticed that the lab sink handle region had a small colony (black circular) on the plate at room temperature while there was no sign of that colony on the plate at 37. Therefore, I did a close up look on that particular colony (Figure 6).
At 37°C At Room Temperature (24°C)
Figure 4 and 5: TSA plates on Day 7
- Numbers of colonies present: - Numbers of colonies present:
+ Shoes: 57 + Shoes: 18
+ Lab Sink Handle: 20 + Lab Sink Handle: 2
+ Cell Phone: 40 + Cell Phone: 1
+ Lab Table: 21 + Lab Table: 2
- Different types of colonies: - Different types of colonies:
+ Shoes: 4 + Shoes: 3
+ Lab Sink Handle: 2 + Lab Sink Handle: 2
+ Cell Phone: 2 + Cell Phone: 1
+ Lab Table: 3 + Lab Table: 1
Figure 6: A close up look of the black circular colony.
It is black with fuzzy edges on the outside.
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ReplyDeleteSo I also tested on my shoes and got similar results to yours. One thing I found interesting is while warmer temperature boosts up the bacterial growth significantly, more different species prefer room temperature condition to grow so the bacterial culture is more diverse at this temperature.
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