Microbes

• give 5 importances of microbes

  sucession

  biodiversity

  nitrogen cycle

  recombinant dna

  vaccines
• outline sucessoon as an importance of microbes

  Initially during succession, environments are very hostile and inhabitable for most species, apart from pioneer species. These colonise the environment, changing the abiotic factors making it less hostile, allowing other species to inhabit the area. From this, basic layers of humus form which develops into soil as succession continues. Microbes role in this is to change the abiotic conditions, making them less hostile so other organisms can inhabit the area, which increases biodiversity.
• outline biodiversity as an importance of microbes

  as biodiversity increases, mycorrhizae form symbiotic relationship with roots of plants, which increases SA for absorption. E.g. increasing the amount of phosphate ions absorbed from soil. More biological molecules can then be made e.g. ATP. Without this, less ATP would be created which in turn means there is less energy to actively load solutes into sieve tubes in the xylem. These solutes include amino acids and carbohydrates which can be used in respiration and protein synthesis. 
• outline nitrogen cycle as an importance for microbes

  Nitrogen fixing bacteria convert N2 from air to ammonia through ammonification. Nitrifying bacteria, then oxidise the ammonia to nitrites and then into nitrates. These compounds can then be absorbed by plants. Without these, soil would lack nitrogen which is needed to make amino acids and chlorophyll. Without chlorophyll photoionisation in plants would be limited, preventing electrons moving down the ETC and ATP being made.
• outline recombinant dna as an importance of microbes

  Plasmids are an efficient way to insert DNA as bacteria act as vectors. e.g. insulin coding genes. DNA can be isolated by restriction endonucleases and inserted into plasmids, which are then transformed into the bacteria. Their rapid growth is useful as large amounts of insulin can quickly be made through transcription of the mRNA and assembled into insulin. without this type one diabetes couldn’t be treated, as insulin lowers blood glucose levels. showing how valuable microbes are in medicine.
• outline vaccines as an importance of microbes

  they don’t contain introns or regulatory genes so their genome can directly convert into their proteome. This means tertiary structures of proteins can be derived and can be replicated to make inactive forms of these proteins for vaccinations. This means if we administer these vaccines, b lymphocytes can start dividing by mitosis to make plasma cells, which will secrete specific antibodies that are complementary to antigen. Memory cells are also made from the cloning of B cells.