Bacteria Outline

Bacteria - Oldest, structurally simplest, most abundant forms of life - Only organism with prokaryotic cellular organization - The only members of the kingdom Monera (4800 different kinds) - Characteristics change depending on growth conditions - Maintenance of life depends on them - play vital role of productivity and as decomposers - Capable of fixing atmospheric N for use by other organisms - Used in production and fermentation of various food and as antibiotics and is …

…and flagellated - Soil/water - converts N to a form which can be used by other organisms and itself - Fermenting bacteria - obligate anaerobe - N fixing -Chemoautotrophic bacteria - Chemoautotrophy - metabolism that depends on chemical sources of energy like methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide - Do not require sunlight - Use N compounds to gain energy (Nitrosomonas) - Oxidize inorganic S or Fe compounds to gain energy - Use methane/methanol