a. If you wished to obtain a pure culture of bacteria that could degrade benzene and use it as a carbon and energy source, how would you proceed?
Enrichment cultures are used to select for organisms with unique characteristics. I'd use a medium with benzene as the only carbon and energy source. This would be a mineral medium without sugars or amino acids. After some incubation time, the culture should be dilution plated onto a solid medium with no added carbon or energy source besides the benzene. This should be done on a closed, glass vessel, since benzene is volatile and can dissolve several plastics.
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b. Suppose you discovered a new bacterial strain from a hot spring in Rotorua, and that you are able to culture the bacterium in a laboratory setting. Design experiments to figure out its optimum growth conditions in relation to temperature, pH and salt. Describe in each case the results you anticipate to observe.
Bacteria that live in hot springs have evolved to withstand high heat termperatures.
Finding optimum temperature:Expose the several cultures of microbe to varying degrees of heat, then observe which one produces the most number of colonies.
pH and saltSame idea as above. Expose the microbe to acidic solutions that varying in acidity from lowest to highest (basic). After exposure, find out which produced the most amount of colonies.
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