Besc Quiz 1

Microbial population

Group of microorganisms of the same species that inhabit a specific environment at given time

Microbial assemblage

Group of microbial populations that coexist in a specific contiguous environment

(doesn’t mean they are interacting)

Microbial community

Microbial community are microorganisms that live together in a contiguous (sharing a border) environment and interact with each other

Microbiota

Consists of a group of communities from overlapping sites that may or may not be interacting with each other

Keystone Species

Plays a pivotal role in the community

Prokaryotes

• DNA is not in nucleus, floats in the cytoplasm

• Most DNA are circular

• Single cell

Eukaryotes

• Usually multicellular, can be singular

• DNA is in nucleus

Bacteria & Archaea:

• Archaea  can live in more extreme environments than bacteria, can be found in other environments as well

  • Archaea is believed to be one of the oldest organisms 

• Bacterial cell walls have peptidoglycan but archaeal cell walls are composed of similar substance called pseudopeptidoglycan (much thicker cell wall)

• No known archaeal pathogens (no diseases)

• Important of shape

  • The shape depends on how they move 

Protista

• The most diverse category of life

• Very evolutional different one another, hard to classify them together 

• Includes large range of unicellular organisms

Viruses

• Acellular

• Not consider living beings but sometimes referenced to as living entities

• Require a living host cell

Biological species concept

groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups

-Think cows cant pro-crate with monkeys

Microbial species concept

Microorganism can be differentiated based on their genetic makeup

Genomic Species Concept

• Based on molecular chemistry of DNA molecule

DNA bases and parings

A-T, C-G

Phylogenomic Species Concept

based on actual DNA sequence variation in the DNA molecule

Phylogenetic Species Concept:

utilizes one gene as a proxy for the entire genome

Lichens

includes Fungus, algae, bacteria

Fungus breaks down living matter, algae photosynthesize, Actinobacteria defend predators by producing toxins

Microbiome

Microbiota with a theatre of activity. Refers to function

Actinobacteria

Produces antibacterial

Ribosomal RNA

central to an organism’s existence, rarely mutates