A Microbial World

A self-contained ecosystem blooming from Campus Lagoon mud, this Winogradsky Column reveals the layered beauty of microbial life and the processes that shape our world.

This is a Winogradsky Column. At its simplest, it is a cylinder of mud (delightfully sampled from the Campus Lagoon) that I enriched back in January 2024 with shredded newspaper (a carbon source), potassium phosphate, and ammonium chloride. However, over a year later, one can now clearly see the immense diversity that has emerged throughout the layers of the column; a vibrant microbial ecosystem. This unassuming device elegantly embodies the foundational concepts pioneered by Sergei Winogradsky. These very principles now underpin the fields of microbial ecology and biogeochemistry and have helped shape our broader understanding of microbes as drivers of large scale ecosystem processes. To see a complete stop-motion video of the entire column please visit this link: https://vimeo.com/1075530570.