Sandra Kolberg Dr. Leigh BIOL342 Microbiology April 13th, 2017 Bacterial Isolate Project: What Lives on the Bottom of my Backpack? Picture this: You’re a microbe; free to live anywhere your little cellular body can take you. But where would you choose? Somewhere warm, dark, and Or maybe somewhere colder, darker; a place where the human giants around you could not survive. The truth is a microbe’s environment of choice varies with its metabolic needs. Though a lot of microorganisms can technically survive in many environments, for one to truly thrive it must find a habitat that matches its physiological needs. With this idea I chose to streak the bottom of my backpack for my bacterial isolate project. Though this environment is similar to many oxygen-rich habitats on this Earth that microbes could reside, it seems like the bottom of my backpack offers little nutrients for bacterial growth. I was curious to see the amount and variation in growth, as any bacterial growth on my backpack must be pretty resilient and low-maintenance. I took a sample from the bottom of my backpack and ran a series of physiological and genetic testing to see if the bacteria I isolated matched the characteristics required to survive in such a place. Depending on the places my backpack was set, results could be interesting. To identify the bacterial isolate taken from the bottom of my backpack, a number of physiological and genetic testing was performed. This process began
Sandra Kolberg Dr. Leigh BIOL342 Microbiology April 13th, 2017 Bacterial Isolate Project: What Lives on the Bottom of my Backpack? Picture this: You’re a microbe; free to live anywhere your little cellular body can take you. But where would you choose? Somewhere warm, dark, and Or maybe somewhere colder, darker; a place where the human giants around you could not survive. The truth is a microbe’s environment of choice varies with its metabolic needs. Though a lot of microorganisms can technically survive in many environments, for one to truly thrive it must find a habitat that matches its physiological needs. With this idea I chose to streak the bottom of my backpack for my bacterial isolate project. Though this environment is similar to many oxygen-rich habitats on this Earth that microbes could reside, it seems like the bottom of my backpack offers little nutrients for bacterial growth. I was curious to see the amount and variation in growth, as any bacterial growth on my backpack must be pretty resilient and low-maintenance. I took a sample from the bottom of my backpack and ran a series of physiological and genetic testing to see if the bacteria I isolated matched the characteristics required to survive in such a place. Depending on the places my backpack was set, results could be interesting. To identify the bacterial isolate taken from the bottom of my backpack, a number of physiological and genetic testing was performed. This process began