2006Protozoa from the Tohoku University Botanical Garden in Aobayam III

Soils from the L, H, and A layers were sampled from the Tohoku University Botanical Garden in Sendai. This is a video of an organism taken from the L layer on the soil surface, where there are freshly fallen leaves in their original shape and other organic debris. At first organisms could not be found in the newly collected soil, so the samples (including water) were left for one month and then observed.

Commentary by Prof. Yuji Tsukii, Hosei University
This ciliate belongs to the Stichotrichida group, and its shape resembles that of genus Amphisiella.

However, this organism has only a few thin cirri at the rear end, unlike the long, thick rear cirri that are characteristic of genus Amphisiella. Another possibility is that it may be an Oxytricha that is extremely thin due to starvation.

There are a lot of similar-looking organisms in the Stichotrichida group, and they are difficult to identify without fixing and staining the cell so we can examine the appearance and arrangement of cirri in detail. To examine cirri in a video, it is necessary to wait until the organism stops moving to capture the cirri in focus. Then several photographs must be compared to get precise information about the characteristics of cirri in a particular organism.

http://protist.i.hosei.ac.jp/PDB/Im.....

http://protist.i.hosei.ac.jp/PDB/Im.....

Sampling Date : 06 December 2006

Sampling Site : Tohoku University Botanical Garden in Aobayama  Google Map