Microbial Diversity: Course Report 1991

摘要

Inasmuch as the course emphasizes nature as a tremendous reservoir of microbialdiversity, a special effort is made to exploit the array of terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats in the vicinity of Woods Hole as the source of microbes to be isolated in the laboratory portion of the course. Additional samples from unusual habitats (eg. deep sea hydrothermal vent areas; deep subsurface cores) are obtained from other investigators. Subsequent to isolation, experiments are designed to examine some of the unique biochemical and physiological properties of the organisms in pure culture and, where appropriate, when placed in defined co-culture with other microbes. To accomplish this, students are taught various techniques for cultivation of microorganisms (including the Hungate technique for strict anaerobes), as well as various methods for observing and studying the isolated microbes (phase contrast, fluorescence, and DIC microscopy; gas-liquid and high performance liquid chromatography; spectroscopy; PCR methodology and gel electrophoresis; etc.).