Motility in a bacteria depends on the presence of flagella. We used two different techniques to check for motility in our bacteria. One was instering a straight inoculating wire into an agar tube and checking for cloudiness the next day. If the tube is cloud it means the bacteria have spread around the tube and are therefore motile. If the tube is clear, then the bacteria where not able to leave the original insertion streak and are thus not motile.
Results:
Unknown: Motile
Environmental #1 (Lauren) Motile
Encironmental #2 (Kelly): Not Motile
The second mothod involed viewing the bateria under a slide immersed in water to physically see if they were swimming or not. This is done by placing a drop of liquid agar inoculated with bateria a few days before on a cover slip. Dot the corners of the cover slip with vasaline and place a welled slide on top of the cover slip. Then slide is flipped over and this leaves us with a drop of water suspended from the cover slip and not touching anything else so the bateria are free floating in the drop of water and can be observed.
Results:
Only Environmental #1 was motile and can be seen swiming around in this video link.
These little guys are fast!
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