Further adventures at lake Lagunita

Feb 18, 2017 • 5:11 AM UTC

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Microorganisms

Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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With rains pouring upon us (which is a good thing for California); we decided to meet at Lake Lagunita for a quick Foldscope session. I had never seen lake Laguinta filled before (remember my past post about finding spider eggs in lake Laguinta here: https://microcosmos.foldscope.com/?p=7652)
Today morning was a different story. We gathered at the side of the lake; with Hunter, Martha, Waheeda and myself. In 5 minutes our clothes were completely wet in the rains but our spirits high.

What’s nice about the rains; were the only kids playing around the lake.

Here Martha and Waheeda chopping up a dead bloated frog Hunter found on the side of the lake. I am hoping we get to see what this frog died of.
I just collected a scoop of water from the lake. Notice it’s all grasses growing at the bottom; not really an aquatic plant landscape – but we were curious what we will find. Quiet a few things actually..

On the question of how does a landscape repopulate itself when it goes through extreme dry season (the lake is temporary). I often see this egg like structure – wonder what this is.

Overall; quiet a fun collection of organisms. See if you can name them all – please leave identifications in comments below; and I will select the winner of who names the most number of species here.
This simple example illustrates how quickly ecosystems build themselves (and how quickly they can be destroyed). This felt like a very limited in bio-diversity; when it comes to an aquatic ecosystem (since this lake is dry for years – and just this last month has existed as a continuous body of water).
Thanks to my partners in crime; Waheeda, Martha and Hunter. Great day playing in the rains. When do we do it again?
Cheers
Manu
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