BSCI 223 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Ammonia, Phototroph, Photoheterotroph
Document Summary
Isolated from the sky, far below the earth, in places of high salts, high and low ph, chemically toxic environments, places with high radiation. Can survive in environments without: light, oxygen, organic carbon. Estimated 10^9 organisms per gram of soil (10,000,000,000) Estimated 10^5 organisms per ml of sea water (100,000) More bacteria on the planet than stars in the known universe (5 x 10^30) Number of microbes associated with you = number of human cells (not. What are they doing? counting red blood cells) Some are like us (chemooganotrophs) consume organic nutrients. Some are like plants (photoptrophs) light to capture energy. Other (cid:498)eat rocks(cid:499) (cid:523)lihtotorphs) oxidize inorganic substrates. There are no master innovators in metabolism, exploiting every environment on the planet. They can (cid:498)fix(cid:499) carbob (cid:523)co(cid:884) to co((cid:884)(cid:524) They can (cid:498)fix(cid:499) nitrogen (cid:523)n(cid:884) to n((cid:885) to amino acids(cid:524) Convert sulfate (so4) to h2s or incorporated into amino acids. Convert cellulose to (cid:498)biomass(cid:499) and carbon dioxide.