[Terrapreta] Soil microorganisms

[Michael Bailes]

This just landed on my desktop at the same time as your post on soil
microorganisms
A good summary
http://www.aehsmag.com/issues/2002/january/microorganisms.htm

> Growing these organisms is difficult because different organisms from soil
> grow under different conditions of light, temperature, nutrients and oxygen.
> Some organisms grow attached to solid surfaces while others only grow
> unattached in solution.


Some bacteria can grow under two vastly different sets of conditions.
> Facultative anaerobes for instance can grow in both the presence and absence
> of oxygen. In addition some fungal hypha can break apart and form
> reproductive fragments, or propagules, thus leading to an over estimate of
> their abundance.


. . .

> One might think that measuring the amount of carbon dioxide given off by
> soil microorganisms would be a good measure of their abundance and activity.


. . .

> A whole host of microorganism can decompose nitrogen containing organic
> compounds and release ammonia and ammonium into the soil solution.
>


> This in turn is oxidized for energy by other bacteria producing nitrite
> and nitrate. The rate of nitrate production is faster than nitrite
> production so nitrite build up in soil is rare.


michael
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