Like Stars in the Sky: Lake Michigan’s Microbes Glow in their Lakescape
Dear everyone,
Here we are inventorying the microbes in Lake Michigan – the 2nd largest of the Laurentian Great Lakes. At more than a million cells per milliliter of lake water, microbes stained with a nucleic acid-specific fluorochrome glow like stars under the epifluorescence microscope. The smallest green specs are viruses, next come bacteria and cyanobacteria, with the largest space ship-like organism ferrying many bacterial aquanauts being a diatom. These tiny, but abundant microbial plankton, link our planet’s watery “Inner Space” to the atmosphere and geosphere through their collectively massive activities such as photosynthesis and respiration.
Deb Dila, School of Freshwater Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI.
http://uwm.edu/freshwater/
Bopi Biddanda, Annis Water Resources Institute, Grand Valley State University, Muskegon, MI.
http://www.gvsu.edu/wri/