BISC209/F13: Lab3: Difference between revisions

You will prepare another soil extract today from a new soil sample so that you can set up some tests for the prevalence of specific exoenzymes that have an important impact on the availability of nutrients for the soil community. You will start some measurements of metabolite cycling and utilization. We will assess, specifically, at the community level, how well your soil microbes interact co-operatively to use a variety of carbon sources and to secrete digestive exoenzyme that are able to process essential or commonly available nutrients into widely useable forms. The nutrients we have chosen to look at are phosphates, cellulose, and starch.<BR><BR>

Our goal is to obtain quantitative evidence for richness of the microbial soil community and for co-operative behavior in the community.  We will quantify this soil microbial community's ability to use a variety of carbon sources for its anabolic needs as CMD (community metabolic diversity).  We will also assess the proportion of microbes in the community that can secrete enzymes to process phosphates into a soluble form, or to degrade cellulose or starch into simpler raw materials. The prevalence of those enzymes in the community can be seen as evidence for co-operative behavior as well as to serve as another measure of functional metabolic diversity.<BR><BR>