[Michaelangelica]

Bacteria Reveal Secret Of Adaptation At Evolution Canyon

ScienceDaily (July 30, 2008) — Bacteria living on opposite sides of a canyon have evolved to cope with different temperatures by altering the make-up of their 'skin', or cell membranes. Scientists have found that bacteria change these complex and important structures to adapt to different temperatures by looking at the appearance of the bacteria as well as their genes. The researchers hope their study, published in the August issue of Microbiology, will start a new trend in research.


'Evolution Canyons' I and II are in Israel. They are similar, each with a hot south-facing slope and a cooler north-facing slope. The sun-exposed 'African' south-facing slopes get eight times more solar radiation than the shady, green, lush 'European' north-facing slopes. Scientists studied 131 strains of Bacillus simplex and found that bacteria on different slopes have evolved differently, forming different 'ecotypes' of the same species.

Bacteria Reveal Secret Of Adaptation At Evolution Canyon

How Some Bacteria May Steal Iron From Their Human Hosts

ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2008) — Like their human hosts, bacteria need iron to survive and they must obtain that iron from the environment. While humans obtain iron primarily through the food they eat, bacteria have evolved complex and diverse mechanisms to allow them access to iron.


A Syracuse University research team led by Robert Doyle, assistant professor of chemistry in The College of Arts and Sciences, discovered that some bacteria are equipped with a gene that enables them to harvest iron from their environment or human host
. . .
Actinomycetes need lots of iron to wage chemical warfare on its enemies; however, iron is not easily accessible in the environments in which the bacteria live— e.g. human or soil. Some iron available in the soil is bonded to citrate, making a compound called iron-citrate. Citrate is a substance that cells can use as a source of energy

How Some Bacteria May Steal Iron From Their Human Hosts
SO. . .

• What happens when you seed the seas with iron? (As suggested by some to reduce CO2) Does this just effect phytoplankton? (See article on bacteria in sea producing methane in News thread)
• What happens in different soil pH environments/levels? Is more or less iron available? How does this change soil microbiology?
• What is the soil bacteria like in mountains of Iron- as exist in western Australia?
• What would adding iron or Iron citrate to garden/farm soil do to soll fertility and plant growth?
• Does addition of charcoal to soil change iron availability at all? It changes/increases bacteria so where does the extra iron needed come from?

Are Humans and other life just here to help the microbes?

Life on this planet is microbial," he said. "There is a vast amount going on in the microbial world that we don't understand. Microbes play significant roles in the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the phosphorous cycle, and we don't fully understand how."

Part of the reason microbes remain mysterious is the way they have traditionally been studied in the lab, Fields said. Researchers usually grow cultures of single microbe species and then explore how those monocultures react to different stimuli.

"But monocultures in the lab are not like the real world," Fields said. "Seldom do organisms grow on their own in a real ecosystem."

Instead, Fields looks at the complex systems and communities microbes form naturally. The goal, he said, is not necessarily to understand which single variable produces a certain reaction. Rather, the goal is to understand the key mechanisms that drive the entire system.

Fields uses this system-based approach to study how the microbial communities living at sites contaminated by toxic heavy metals, such as uranium and chromium, may help stop the spread of those contaminants.

Some forms of those heavy metals are soluble in water, allowing them to seep into groundwater and spread beyond the contaminated site.

But Fields explained that some of the microbes he studies can, just by going through their natural life processes, make those metals insoluble. Instead of spreading, the metals are deposited in solid form at the contamination site.

Microbiologists Studying Little-known But Largely Useful Microbes

[Michaelangelica]

QUT

Climate-saving fungi: Where microbial ecology meets sustainability. Speaker: Professor James Tiedje, from the Center for Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University. Microbes could be the way to a sustainable future, by offsetting atmospheric carbon dioxide, helping to produce biofuels and reducing our need for fertilisers. When: August 12, 2008 at 10.00am-12.00pm. Where: Gardens Point campus, George St, Brisbane. Room: OJW Room, S Block. Cost: free. Info: Harminder Bhar, phone 07 3138 7009, email bhar@qut.edu.au, web QUT | ISR: Institute for Sustainable Resources.

.................................................. ..................................

"Before now, all biologists could do was look at the biodiversity of microbes that could be cultured in a petri dish. We now know that the vast majority of microbial life cannot be kept in captivity. Now we have the ability to grab DNA from the environment and try to characterize different species or taxonomic groups using genetic material, allowing our field to blast off."

Yet, she added: "We are just beginning to scratch the surface of what these patterns look like.
. . .
researchers found twice as many microbes at the equator than at the poles
. . .
As they went higher, plant life saw a decline in species richness, but for microbes, researchers saw a hump shape in species richness as they went up the slopes.
. . .
Yet microbes are the most diverse set of organisms on Earth, and they are really important for how ecosystems work. Our study establishes the first elevation-gradient pattern for microbes. We found that, yes, microbes do have a diversity pattern that is similar to what has been studied for plants and animals, but the pattern is different than what you see for plants in the Rockies, and there is much to be done to understand why microbes might have a different biodiversity pattern."

It could boil down to finding a good comparative technique, she said. "I don't think that microbes are fundamentally different from a biological standpoint from plants and animals. I think that we haven't figured out how to study them in an analogous way."

Microbes, By Latitudes And Altitudes, Shed New Light On Life's Diversity

[erich]

Here's Lehmann's new work speculating on the mechanisms that increase MYC/VAM fungus ;

Mycorrhizal responses to biochar in soil – concepts
and mechanisms
Daniel D. Warnock & Johannes Lehmann &
Thomas W. Kuyper & Matthias C. Rillig

http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/l...%20Warnock.pdf



posted on the TP/Bioenergy site, this presentation is one of the best I've seen to get across how MYC symbiotically permeates all in roots & soils, and elucidates often hidden benefits. Very nice pictures;


http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles...hioCents06.pdf


Erich

[Michaelangelica]

Incomprehensible article. I was at first excited to see Agar and charcoal in the same sentence (see previous posts)

/ Document title
Influence of agar and activated charcoal on uptake of gibberellin and plant morphogenesis in vitro

Influence of agar and activated charcoal on uptake of gibberellin and plant morphogenesis in vitro

[erich]

gibberellin, is a hormone used as a growth and fruit set regulator. more sets and longer nodes, but in soils inhibits root growth. So I take from this study that it's adsorption by char is one more of the many co-benefits of biochar.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by erich

gibberellin, is a hormone used as a growth and fruit set regulator. more sets and longer nodes, but in soils inhibits root growth. So I take from this study that it's adsorption by char is one more of the many co-benefits of biochar.

What I found interesting was the use of the word "irreversable" in the conclusion statement. I'm still trying to make sense of that as I thought that plant roots are able to "reach inside" the pores and access material that had been adsorbed?

[erich]

Paper on MYC response to elevated CO2 levels,
this says to me that TP will have higher occupancy every year of CO2
increases.

CO2 Science



On Giberilin, Don't know but it's a hormone not a nutrient per say, maybe it's structure locks it tight?

[Michaelangelica]

TMO's microbiologists screened thousands of different wild types of bacteria, looking for one that could survive high temperatures and fed off a wide variety of plant-based materials.

"We found some heat-loving bacteria in a compost heap, from the Geobacillus family, which in their wild form produce lactic acid as a by-product of sugar synthesis when they break down biomass," said Milner. "We altered their internal metabolism, adapting them to produce substantial amounts of ethanol instead."

"Our new microorganism, called TM242, can efficiently convert the longer-chain sugars from woody biomass materials into ethanol. This thermophilic bacterium operates at high temperatures of 60-70°C and digests a wide range of feedstocks very rapidly," said Milner.

The scientists estimate that some 7 million tons of surplus straw is available in the UK every year. Turning it into ethanol could replace 10% of the gasoline fuel used in this country.

Bacteria from Compost Could Provide 10% of UK Transport Fuel Needs

[Michaelangelica]

A scary report

Soil-sterility and pollution
In Oregon, scientists found out that GM bacterium, Klebsiella planticola, engineered to breakdown agri wastes to produce ethanol and the residual waste component as compost material – rendered the soil sterile.
It eliminated essential soil nutrients like nitrogen and killed the nitrogen capturing fungi. A similar result was also found with the GM bacteria, Rhizobium melitoli. Professor Guenther Stotzky of New York University found out that the same toxins that eliminated the Monarch butterflies were also released by the roots of GM plants and polluted the soil which lasted up to 18 months and depressed soil microbial activity.
An Oregon study also showed that GM soil microbes killed wheat plants in the lab. when added to the soil.

BIOTECHNOLOGY- DNA-RNA roles and interactions: Biotechnology and Environmental Biosafety

[Michaelangelica]

A great "wee beastie" site

The Bacteria: an Introduction.

The present kingdom Bacteria represents those organisms most fundamentally important to the existence and nature of life on Earth. There are a number of ways in which this is apparent, but probably the most crucial is the role played by bacteria in the supply of nitrogen to other living creatures.

The element nitrogen is an essential constituent of all protein (and DNA), and protein is essential to the structure, metabolism and growth of all living things. (Nitrogen is about 16% of the weight of protein).
The Bacteria are the only creatures which are able to convert the nitrogen gas of the atmosphere into chemical forms (ammonia, nitrites and nitrates) which can be utilized by other organisms. Their ability to "fix" nitrogen constitutes a major contribution to the environment in which all other creatures have developed, and upon which those creatures are now, as in the distant past, totally dependent.
The ability of the bacteria to process nitrogen is at least as important to the present state of life on Earth as the ability of plants to produce oxygen.
. . .
Another clear example of dependence upon bacteria is seen in the gut organisms which facilitate much of the food digestion in animals from termites to elephants.
Deprived of their gut flora, none of these animals could survive. In our own case, it has been estimated that we humans carry a larger number of bacterial cells than we possess human cells.
Animal existence at this level is very clearly a partnership. We are each a microcommunity, made up of cells which are themselves the descendants of microcommunities (also involving bacteria) established very early in the history of life on Earth.
. . .

Micrographia: Specimens: Bacteria (Monera).
Index
Micrographia: A Light Microscopy Resource: Directory to photomicrographs of micro organisms and other specimens.