Microbial Groups and Principles Of Ecology

This week we learn about Microbial Groups, Principles of Ecology and a bit intro in Biogeochemical Cycles.


MICROBIAL GROUPS

* Microbial growth is based on the population size an interrelated with reproduction (binary fission, budding, fragmentation, spores, sexual reproduction)

* Requirements for development of microbial community
1) Physical requirements
   - light
   - temperature
   - pH
   - water activity and osmotic pressure
2) Chemicals requirements
   - water
   - carbon
   - oxygen
   - nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur
   - special growth requirement
   - trace elements

* Developement of microbial communities
- selection strategues
- succession
- biofilm


PRINCIPLES OF ECOLOGY

Ecology
- the systematic study of organisms and their interactions with environment

Habitat
- place where an organism can be found

Ecological niche
- a place where an organism performs best

Hierarchy in ecology
1) organism
2) population
3) community
4) ecosystem

Determinants of biosphere distribution of organism
- temperature
- water
- sunlight
- wind
- rocks and soil
- periodic disturbance

Homeostasis
- dynamic balance of processes, materials and organisms in the ecoystem and biosphere

Flow of energy
Producers --> consumers --> decomposers

Roles of microbes in the ecosystem
- oxygen producer
- nitrogen fixer
- recyclers of dead materials
- source of food
- contribute to evolution

Approaches to effective ecosystem management
- stakeholders
- adaptive management
- natural resource management
- strategic management
- lanscape level conservation
- command and control management

ALGAE, FUNGI, PROTOZOA and VIRUS

Week 11

We have three class for this week. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We learned four topics and we did an activity on Friday using new interesting apps.

My group (MayLing, Veron, Nuaim, Azny, Alia) and I presented about algae on Wednesday. Basically, algae is a plantlike protista and have many different division; chlorophyta, charophyta, euglenophyta, chrysophyta, phaephyta, rhodophyta, phaephyta and pyrrophyta. They live in three types of habitat which a planktonic, benthic and neustonic. Algae is either phototrophic or chemoheterotrophic. They reproduce through asexual (fragmentation, spore, binary fission) and sexual reproduction. Nowadays, algae is highl y used as a source of biofuel.

Fungi are a very interesting organism. They do not have chlorophyll and most of them are saphrophytes. They reproduce mainly using spores. However, many of them can have both sexual and asexual reproduction (budding, fragmentation, sporulation). There are 5 types of spore which a conidiospore, chlamydiospore, sporangiospore, arthrospore and blastospore. As same as algae, fungi also have many different division. The divisions are zygomycota, ascomycota, basidiomycota, chytridiomycetes, deutromycota, myxomycota, acrasiomycota and oomycota.Fungi can cause harmful to human such as ringworm and asthma but, they are more likely to be beneficial to us as they are really important in fermentation process and agents for bioremediation.

Protozoa are animal-like protist. Their morphology is very unique as they have ectoplasm, endoplasm, pellicle, nucleus and vacuoles. They feed as a chemoheterroyroph and saprozoic. They are motile and have pseudopodia, flagella and cilia as their locomotry organelles. They reproduce through asexual (binary fission) and sexual reproduction (conjugation). They are classified into seven clssification based on types of nuclei, mode of reproduction and mechanism of locomotoin. THe classifications are sacromastigophora, labyrinthomorpha, apicomplexa, microspora, ascetospora, myxozoa and ciliophora. 

Virus are obligatory intracellular parasite which means they need a living host to grow. They are classified based on nucleic acid type, strategy of replication and morphology. They can have either DNA or RNA, double or single stranded. Usually, they have capside, spikes and envelope which attach to cell wall, fimbriae or flagella of bacteria and plasma membrane of  animal cells. Baed on the morphology, they are classified into enveloped, complex, helical and polyhedral virus.

On Friday, we used edpuzzle.com to create a quiz in a video. It is very interesting and also a new form of attractive learning.