Intro to Microbiology 3/26/25 Microbial Ecology and Environmental Microbiology

Population

A group of individuals of one species living in a common location

Ecosystem

Consists of populations of species plus their habitat or environment

Community

The sum of all the populations of different species constitutes a community that interacts with each other in a specific area.

Microbiome

The microbes that are associated with a host animal or plant.

Metagenome

The sum total of all of all DNA sequenced from an environmental sample.

• Refers to the DNA sequence obtained directly from a mixture of genomes.

SSU (rRNA sequence)

The standard for identifying environmental taxa

Processing samples

Once the community has been sampled, researchers

then must:

• Separate the microbes from their physical environment

• Break open the cells

• Isolate the DNA

Metabarcoding