Comparison between two pond water jars using the oxygen depletion method

 
                                                Cypress Creek, NW Alabama          Diebert Park, small pond in NW Alabama
Collecting,
April 17, 2010		         

       

Initial Jar Set Up

   


 
Results after 18 hours       
                       Isopod & Insect      Prorhynchid
                                                   Flatworm		          
                       Protists near           Ostracods and
                       surface                   microturbellarian
                                                    flatworm
After four days... only the Diebert Park samples (far column) were interesting.  Of the two small jars from Diebert Park, one of them had abundant annelids in a near continuous ring around the top of the water (images at right).  The other Diebert jar was stocked with a seemingly identical subsample of field material yet failed to develop the rich number of annelids.  I conclude that the annelids were not equally distributed throughout the source material used to stock both jars, and may occur in clumps in nature.