Lab Report on Bacteria and Archaea - that it is possible to identify bacterial species based on their cellular morphology. 3 Labs performed which is to be used for this lab report Lab 1 - Microscopy

BIOL -2902L – F2020 Lab Report Writing Guidelines The lab r epo rt is due on Sunday, November 8 th at 11:59 pm and must be submitted by Nexus into the appropriate dropbox in .doc, .docx, or .pdf formats. There will be a penalty of 5% for each 24 hours late or part thereof. Lab reports will no longer be accepted after Sunday, November 15 th at 11:59 pm (one week late). The following sections must be included in your report:  Title P age  Abstract: 200 to 250 words  Introduction: 500 to 750 words  Methods: no word limit  Results: no word limit  Discussion: 750 to 1000 words  Citations and References The text of the lab report should be double -spaced and left -ali gned, each paragraph should be indented, and a simple 12 -size font should be used . Figure and table captions should be single -space d and not indented. Title Page The title page should include the following details; a descriptive title for your report, your first and last name, and your lab section. This information should appear on a separate page at the beginning of your report. Abst ract The abstract should contain the essential details of your report, including the methods and results, and some of the topics found in the introduction and discussion. It is often written like a mini -paper, summarising all these sections in the order th at they appear in your paper. For this reason, this section of the paper should be written last . Because there will not be anything mentioned in the abstract that does not appear in greater detail elsewhere in your paper, it is not necessary to put citations in the abstract. The abstract should be between 200 and 250 words. Introduction BIOL -2902L – F2020 The hypothesis, which you are trying to support or disprove, is that it is possible to identify bacterial species based on their cellular morphology . This section sho uld introduce the various stains and slide -preparation techniques t hat were employed in the first three in -person labs . Explain, using references, the general scientific principles behind the experiments. Provide the necessar y information for the reader to understand your results (ie. what are the various possible cell morphologies and arrangements). Explain how the contents of the report are related and not just a collection of isolated experiments. Assume your reader has background knowledge of university biology, but is not familiar with this course. Do not end the introduction with a summary of your findings; this is redundant to both the results and the abstract. Instead your introduction should end with a paragraph outlining the study purpose and your hypothesis. Your introdu ction should be a maximum of 750 words. 1 mark will be subtracted for every 75 words over the limit. Methods The methods section should provide a detailed descript ion of how the experiments were performed and using what resources. I t is not necessary to describe how to perform a Gram sta in, only to say you performed one and provide a reference to the established p rotocol that you followed (i.e. the lab manual). Note anything that differed from the established protocol, such as increa sing or decreasing the staining time. Always clearly describe the species you worked with, the procedures performed, and any media or reagents used (this includes indicating the types of stains used when multiple possibilities exist ). Use the following exa mples below to guide your writing in this section.  Gram stains were performed on E. coli and S. aureus following es tablished laboratory protocols.  Negative stains were performed on E. coli, S. aureus and the unknown bacterial strain following es tablished laboratory protocols. The negative stain used was nigrosin.  Catalase tests were performed on the unknown bacterial strain and the previously -identified six known bacterial species following es tablished laboratory protocols, except that, instead of applying hydrogen peroxide directly to agar plates, bacteria were transferred from the agar plates to glass microscope slides. Hydrogen peroxide was then added to the slides as described in the laboratory protocol. BIOL -2902L – F2020 All bacterial stocks ar e provided by the Universi ty of Winnipeg. Never use point - form notation, bullet -point lists or numbere d lists of instructions in your methodology. If you perform a specific experiment multiple times for different bacteria, you only need to introduce the methodology once and then cl arify it was performed for each species. Results The results section must include text to guide the reader through the data presented in figures and tables. Text can also be used to present data that does not conveniently or logically fit into figures or tables. The text guides the reader through the sequence of experimental procedures and results. The results should be presented in full sentences in properly formatted paragraphs. Properly formatted tables and figures should be included in the results section and used to suppor t and clarify your findings. Figures and tables should appear in the results section shortly following their mention in the text, not in an appendix at the end of the report. All figures and tables must be effectively refere nced i n the text of the results section. Each table and figure should include a caption. For tables, this capt ion should be at the top of the table; for figures, this caption should be below the figure. The figure capti ons should be informative: provide as many technical details as you feel are necessary for the reader t o understand the image, even in the absence of the rest of your text. If there is information that you want your read er to learn from a figure, such as the morphology shown in that figure, include it in the caption. When pres enting figures with two or more different organisms or structures in them, the figure caption must explain wh at each thing is, by colour, by shape or using clear labels. When usin g multiple images within a single figure, identify each one with a letter so that, when you refer to the figure in your text, you can direct the reader to exactly what you want t hem to see (e.g. Figure 1A, 1B, etc.). There are three major components to the results section in this lab report:  comparison between simple, negative, and wet mount stains  Gram staining  Identification of organisms in mix broths BIOL -2902L – F2020 The first component is an examination of ways to view bacteria under the microscope, comparing the relati ve advantages of simple staining, negative staining and we t mounts based on your personal experiences working with these techniques in the lab. Do not describe the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of each technique, but compare and contrast wh at ha ppened when you used these techniques on the same samples and what you observed in Lab 1 and Lab 2 (ex. simple stains allow for better definition of cell morphology, while negative stains allow for better viewing of cellular arrangement). You do not need t o include figures of all six speci es under all three slide prepa ration techniques. However, you must include enough figures to effectivel y demonstrate your observations (ex. at least one example of each type of stain). The second component of the results i s the Gram staining of the s ix known species in tryptic soy b roths, performed in Lab 3. Present detailed, captioned figures and w ritten descriptions of the Gram stain results for all six of our known species. The third component is the identification of th e organisms found in the two mix broths performed in Lab 3. The identities of the organisms in the mix broths should be propos ed with supporting evidence for these conclusions. This can be done most effectively by including figur es and using a comparison t able between the known and unknown species. Please note that while the ramif ications of identifying the organisms in the mix broths should be addressed in the discussion (Are these results supported by external literature? Do the results support the hypoth esis?), you should propose identities for the two organisms in each of the mix cultures in your results section and prese nt all of the relevant evidence that you collected in the lab. Provide at least one table supporting your identifications of the organi sms in the mix broths. You may include any other figures or tables that you feel strengthen your report. Therefore, your results should include the following tables/figures in addition to the written text.  figure(s) showing an example of a simple, negativ e, and wet mount  6 Gram stain figures, 1 for each known bacterial species  2 Gram stain figures, 1 for each unknown bacterial mix  1 comparison table presenting similarities between the known bacteria and unknown bacteria of the two mixes. BIOL -2902L – F2020 Discussion Along with addressing common concerns, such as possible sourc es of error, you should include a discussion of questions more specific to the experiments performed i n this report. For example, the discussion should put your results within the context of establishe d scient ific knowledge. Are there flaws in the experiment (ways in which the procedure was inherently inacc urate or biased) and sources of error (ways in which human errors while conducting the experiment may have affected the results) that undermine your confidence in your data? How did the different tech niques for preparing microscope slides affect your conclusions? Remember to be specific in your state ments. Do not forget to address your hypothesis and draw conclusions as to its validity. Be sure to prop ose how these results could be verified using an alternative identification method. When discussing possible errors, use specific examples from your results and outline the correct observation with literature reference verification. Your discus sion should be a maximum of 1000 words. 1 mark will be subtracted for every 100 words over the limit. Citations and References Failure to properly reference material will be penalized within the sec tion of the report in which the failure was made. Ongoing or egregious failure to reference material will be treated as academic misconduct and will be subject to departmental review. Citations should be numbered in the order that they appear in your repo rt. In the body of your report, cite by including a superscript number immediately after the statement you a re citing, or at the end of the sentence. At the end of the report, include a references section that details the c itations in the order that they appeared in the report. If you cite the same source more than once, us e the same number that you used earlier in your report. However, if you cite two different sections or page range s (e.g. pages 5 -6 and pages 19 -27 from Bacteria & Archaea: The Laboratory Manual), please treat these as two separate citations with different nu mbers and different entries in the references section. Some references are considered to be more reputable or have gone through a higher degree of scrutiny than others. Part of the evaluation of your references is based on your ability to find and use info rmation from sources that are considered academically robust. This tends to fall along a spectrum, with BIOL -2902L – F2020 peer -reviewed literature from scientific journals being considered the most rep utable, then edited books, then other expert sources, and so forth. It is better to reference a less robust source for your info rmation than to fail to reference it entirely. For this course, we use the Council of Science Editors (CSE) Citation -Sequence citation and reference with the modification that all references to books, including the lab manual and textbook, must include a p age number or specific page range where this information can be found. Below is an example of referencing Lab 1 (pages 7 -9) and Lab 2 (pages 10 -12 ) from the lab manual, and page 79 of a textbook, if th ese three references appeared in this order in your paper. 1. Kachur, K . Biology of Bacteria and Archaea: The Laboratory Manual. Winnipeg: University of Winnipeg; 2017. p. 7 -10. 2. Kachur, K . Biology of Bacteria and Archaea: The Laboratory Manual. Wi nnipeg: University of Winnipeg; 2017. p. 10 -12. 3. Foster JW, Aliabadi Z and Slonczewski, JL. Microbiology: The Human Exper ience, preliminary edition. New York: W . W. Norton & Company; 2016. p. 79. In order to provide sufficient support for the information presented within the report, 5 external references must be included. These references are in addition to the laboratory manual. Therefore your report will contain, at minimum, 6 references. Mark Breakdown Title P age 1 Abstract 4 Introduction 12 Methods 5 Results 15 Discussion 20 Citations and R eferences 3 Total 60