Microbial Communities
What is the definition of Consortium?
A group of two or more microorganisms that live together in a symbiotic relationship and can survive in a variety of conditions. They rely on each other.
What are all the genes within a genome?
Structural, Functional, and Regulatory genes.
What is the definition of oligotrophy?
Nutrients at very low concentrations
What is the rhizosphere?
The area of soil that surrounds a plant's roots
What is the point of Bioremediation?
To use microorganisms to clean up contaminants.
Are microbes easily grown?
No microbes are not, most microbes can not be grown.
What is vertical gene transfer?
The process by which genetic information is passed down through generations from parent to offspring.
Less organic matter =___ ____ ____
more dissolved oxygen
Does the rhizosphere contain a high number of microbes?
Yes, there is a high number of microbes in the rhizosphere.
Ex: parasites, pathogens
What are the four techniques for Bioremediation?
Biostimulation, Cometabolism, Bioaugmentation, and Biocontainment.
What are the three culture-dependent techniques?
Winogradsky column, Enrichment cultures, and Surrogate organisms
What are the three main mechanisms of horizontal (lateral) gene transfer?
Transformation, Transduction, and Conjugation
What are the three ocean zones, and which zones can photosynthesis take place in?
Top, mid-water, and deep sea. The top only.
What is something important in the medical field that microbes from the Rhizosphere help make?
Antibiotics
What is the definition of Biostimulation?
A bioremediation technique that involves changing the environment to stimulate microorganisms in a contaminated area.
What habitat has the lowest culturability?
Seawater
What are the three culture-independent techniques?
Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), flow cytometry (FLOW), and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS).
What is the Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)?
Amount of organic material in the water that can be oxidized by microorganisms.
What is plant exudate and what are 3 examples?
Refers to a significant source of organic carbon, primarily composed of compounds like sugars, sugar alcohols, and organic acids.
What is the definition of Bioaugmentation?
A technique that introduces microorganisms into contaminated soil or water to enhance the ability of the native microbes to break down pollutants.
What are the 4 omics approaches used to study microbiomes and their interactions with the environment?
Metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, and metabolomics
Transcriptomics, microarrays, Northern blots, and transcripts are all related to what?
The study of messenger RNA (mRNA) and gene expression
What separates the aerobic and anaerobic parts of a lake?
The thermocline
What are the 4 horizons of soil and what is their order from top to bottom?
Horizon O, Horizon A, Horizon B, and Horizon C.
What are Xenobiotics?
Manmade chemicals that are foreign to life, or not naturally produced in organisms or the environment.