Introduction
Microbial diversity takes many different shapes and is abundant in the
world around us. For the soil we stand on, and in communities found
within every person, complex communities are essential to our existence.
Learning how bacteria compete and behave within these communities is
essential to understanding what makes them stable and how they interact
with one another. Identification of an individual player in this
community is essential to understand how the community is structured and
maintains balance. |
Stability of Identification.
Objective
One project in the lab is looking at how different bacteria compete for
resources over a long period. Correctly identifying the different
members is essential to make any meaningful conclusions about the
competitive interactions. One effective method of differentiating
closely related members is achieved by looking at a REP-PCR fingerprint. |
Approach
To ensure that this procedure was a dependable way of grouping members
of a community with the original inhabitants, a test growth was performed
on the soil bacterium R. palustris. |
Results
The findings after 16 weeks of growth showed that the fingerprint is
stable enough to group growth tubes that were inoculated from the same
strain, and differentiate between growth tubes that were inoculated with a
different strain. |
Education
BA in Biology, University of
Idaho, 2004
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