Bacterial Growth Essay

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Every organism requires a specific environment in order to survive. Bacteria alike, different types of bacteria are able to survive and reproduce in different types of environment. Some factors that affect the growth of bacteria include temperature, presence of certain gases and pH of the medium it is in.

In this experiment, the variable that was changed was temperature. Temperature is one significant factor that affects the growth of bacteria. Each bacterial culture has its own minimal, maximal and optimal temperatures. Bacteria thrive at their optimum temperature and are only able to survive between their minimum and maximum temperatures. If the temperature is significantly higher than the maximum temperature, the bacteria will be destroyed and this process is irreversible.

In addition, since bacterial growth is affected by many other factors such as pH of the medium and age of the bacteria, these factors must be kept constant throughout the experiment to ensure the accuracy of the results.

Different types of bacteria have different range of temperature they are able to survive. They are generally divided into three types: psychrophiles, mesophiles and thermophiles. Psychrophilic bacteria are able to survive in low temperatures ranging from about -10 to 20°C while thermophilic bacteria are able to thrive in high temperatures ranging from 40 to 75°C. These two types of bacteria are also known as extremophiles due to their ability to survive in extreme conditions. Mesophilic bacteria are bacteria that thrive in temperatures ranging from 10 to 45°C and usually have an optimum growth temperature of about 37°C (M. Furlong, n.d.).

Thermal death point (TDP) is the temperature at which a culture of organism is killed within a short...

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...eath points.

The duration of the experiment should be increased as the thermal death times of B. subtilis at 60, 70 and 80°C were unable to be determined within 110 minutes. The duration can be increased to 180 minutes so as to better investigate its thermal death times. If the presence of bacterial growth was still observed after 180 minutes of exposure, it can be assumed that B. subtilis is able to survive well in that temperature. An exposure time of one day can be carried out to confirm this assumption.

The abnormal presence of bacterial growth can be inspected under a microscope. If the organism inspected is not the bacteria used in the experiment, it means that the growth of the bacterial culture investigated is absent. By using this method, contamination by foreign substances in the surrounding air can be ruled out and the results would be more accurate.

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