1.4 Microbial Ecology Flashcards
Who was the first person to study microbes in natural habitat?
Sergei Winogradsky; Russian Scientist
Organisms that feed solely on inorganic minerals are known as:
Chemolithotrophs or lithotrophs
What is the Windogradsky column?
Instead of isolating pure colonies, Winogradsky built a model wetland ecosystem containing regions of enrichment for microbes of diverse metabolism.
What is geochemical cycling?
The global interconversion of inorganic and organic forms of nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and other minerals.
What is nitrogen fixation?
The global interconversion of inorganic and organic forms of nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and other minerals. Without these essential conversions (nutrient cycles), no plants or animals could live. Bacteria and archaea fix nitrogen (N2) by reducing it to ammonia (NH3), the form of nitrogen assimilated by plants.
What are extremophiles?
Microbes from environments with extreme heat, salinity, acidity, or other factors.
What are endosymbionts?
Organisms living symbiotically insider larger organisms.
What are biofilms?
Biofilms are organized multispecies communities adhering to a surface.
What is the microbiome or microbiota?
It is the collection of all microbes associated with the human body.
Who was Martinus Beijerinck?
He was the first to demonstrate nitrogen-fixing rhizobia grow as endosymbionts within leguminous plants.
