Microbes Growth Essay

Humans need various things in our lives in order for us to continue our growth. When we are infants, we need milk to meet our daily nutritional values. As we get older we need plenty of physical activity. We also need to rest often to allow our bodies a chance to repair themselves. Microbes are no different in that they need many things for them to survive and grow. In the following paragraphs, I’d like to look at five factors that can affect a microbe’s ability to grow.

Water: Water is the most important aspect of life on Earth, whether it be for us humans or microbes. Alcamo’s Microbes and Society states that the “microbial cytoplasm is water based”. From this we can see that water absolutely must be present for the microbe to continue its life. Microbes also depend on water to dissolve essential substances that they need to survive.

Temperature: Perhaps the most wide ranging factor that dictates

There are microbes, known as barophiles, which live in pressures that are extremely high. “The microbes live at the bottom of the ocean, where pressures can be 16,000 lbs per square inch”. These microbes could not survive on the surface on the surface of the water, because they require the constant pressure to stay alive. How creatures like this able to live in such astonishing pressure? “Dr. Jiasong Fang of Iowa State University and Dr. Tonya Peeples of the University of Iowa studied samples from the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana trench”. Fang and Peeples are trying to prove the hypothesis that “polyunsaturated fatty acids in the lipids help piezophiles adapt to permanent cold and pressurized environments”. However, there is no consensus on how these microbes are able to thrive and grow under these extreme pressures. Unlocking this mystery will go a long way for us to understand how life first began on Earth, and also in helping us understand the possibility of life on other