Project Summary: My research project focuses on the observation of thermophilic bacteria growth surrounding an anthropogenic wastewater output just outside of Canmore Alberta. The bacteria growing at this output I have identified as Chloroflexus aurantiacus. My project consists of measuring the amount of bacterial growth at various locations along the output and recording the conditions at each location. This information will hopefully allow me to assess which factors contribute to C. aurantiacus growth conditions and rates as well as provide insight into what degree these factors influence C. aurantiacus growth.
Potential Ecological Processes: There are many processes that underlie this research project. The primary process being investigated is the role of temperature in C. aurantiacus growth. C. aurantiacus is a thermophilic bacterium and requires warm temperatures to grow but it is unclear in the situation whether that is a threshold that needs to be met or a continuous relationship that could increase the growth rate with increasing temperature (to an extent of course). The relationship between growth and temperature if found to be continuous could also take many forms (i.e. exponential, logarithmic, linear etc.). The mathematical relationship between these variables would be interesting to uncover at this particular location.
In addition to the temperature, C. aurantiacus is also a bacterium that can rely on photosynthesis. Thus, another ecological process affecting the bacterium’s growth is its exposure to sunlight, which is dependent on the water depth. Thus, it may be expected that more shallow waters can promote increased bacterial growth. This is another process being investigated in my research project.
Underpinning Ideas:
There are numerous factors that control C. aurantiacus bacterial growth, especially since the bacteria can rely on photosynthetic and chemosynthetic methods of energy production. However, a few key ideas underlie this research project, the first being the relation to temperature. Although it is confirmed that this bacterium is thermophilic, the mathematical relationship between growth and temperature, particularly with potential strain differences in northern climates, is still to be uncovered. The same can be said for water depth, although this may be a more convoluted process as although water depth affects the amount of sunlight received, it also adds factors such as flow rate, water pressure, growth substrate, and more.
Keywords:
a. Main themes
- Chloroflexus aurantiacus
- Growth densities
- Bacterial densities
- Bacterial growth factors
b. Processes
- Thermophilic
- Photosynthetic
- Chemosynthetic
- Sulfur-oxidizing
c. Techniques
- Densitometry
- Thresholding
- Systematic
d. Locations
- Canmore
- Thermo-outputs
- Rockies
- River
- Reservoir
- Pond