A6: Painting with Microbes

Emily Werner

F02

Escherichia coli- I used this on the EMB agar because it ferments lactose with the specific differential media and creates a green sheen color to it. I thought this would be appropriate for the northern lights.

Enterobacter aerogenes- The color of this microbe is a yellow-white. I used it for the moon and the stars in the photo. The bacteria is anaerobic because it too turned black on the media due to fermentation. I had overlooked that when choosing the bacteria. The stars that I dabbed onto the plate didn’t show up so I’m thinking that there wasn’t enough bacteria present to start a colony or it was still undergoing the lag phase of replication.

Citrobacter freundii-   This was used for the river and the mountains. I wanted to go for a shadow style look for the mountains.

 

Each bacteria was gram negative so they showed up well on the plate as this agar specifically selects for only gram-negative. The agar was a dark red to begin with but lightened up over the course of 4 days.