Austrian Autumn in a Bottle

For Katrin's last day in Innsbruck, she and Julia had a special mission: to bottle the Austrian autumn for our anaerobic fungi. Under bright blue skies and the watchful eyes of random ducks, the two girls set out to find the Austrian autumn. Back in the lab, it was neatly spread out, carefully put into bottles, and autoclaved. And - since the two girls are scientists - the whole process was meticulously documented.

Autoclaving, however, brought to light the true character of autumn: blackness and decay (that surprisingly smells of chestnuts). We were sceptical. Will our fungi really survive in this soup of death?

The short answer is: no.

The long answer is: also no.

But it made for some nice Halloween-y pictures - don't you think?

P.S. for really interested people: it was minimal medium (no CRF). We put a little bit of cellobiose and xylane in the medium to help our little fungi along. There was a teeny-weeny bit of growth in all bottles, but they neither colonized the leaves nor formed any bigger mats themselves. The black dots on the leaves have been there before =) Note, however, that there is a lot of other chunk besides leaves in those bottles!