1. Microbial Diversity Scott Clingenpeel

2. Complete Genomes 2671 Prokaryotic genomes in GenBank 114 Eukaryotic genomes – 9 Plants – 52 Animals Do we really need more microbial genomes?

3. Microbial Diversity Less than 0.1% of known microbes have been grown in the lab The uncultured microbes were completely unknown until the relatively recent development of DNA techniques The vast majority of microbes known today don’t have a formal species name

4. What is a Microbial Species?

5. Cell Morphology Image from Wikimedia Commons

6. Cell Morphology Images from Wikimedia Commons Escherichia coli Bacteroides fragilis Clostridium sp.

7. Colony Morphology Image from Wikimedia Commons

8. Colony Morphology NOAA Office of Exploration & Research Brian Traw, U. Pittsburgh Wikimedia Commons

9. Biochemistry Images from ASM MicrobeLibrary

11. DNA (Finally!) Need a gene present in all life Need a gene that is the right size Need a gene with slow and fast evolving parts The gene that was chosen as just right is the 16S/18S ribosomal RNA gene Arbitrary cutoff of 97% identity was decided to be the definition of a microbial species

12. Taxonomy GroupHumansDogs DomainEukaryaEukarya KingdomAnimaliaAnimalia PhylumChordataChordata ClassMammaliaMammalia OrderPrimatesCarnivora FamilyHominidaeCanidae GenusHomoCanis Speciessapienslupus

13. Tree of Life BacteriaArchaeaEukarya Modified from: Madigan et al., Brock Biology of Microorganisms 12 th ed. Thaumarchaeota Nanoarchaeota Korarchaeota Crenarchaeota Euryarchaeota

14. Extremes of Life Temperature range: -18°C – 121°C (0°F – 250°F) – Eukaryotes: 0°C – 60°C (32°F - 140°F) pH: 0 – 13 Salinity: 5M NaCl = 10x sea water = 30% salt Radiation: 3000x the dose that kills humans pH Scale

15. Microbial Physiologies Oxygen + Food → Carbon Dioxide + Water Molecules that can be used in place of Oxygen Nitrate Nitrite Nitric Oxide Nitrous Oxide Sulfate (sulfuric acid) Carbon Dioxide Chlorine Iron Manganese Selenium Arsenic Molecules that can be used as Food Hydrogen gas Hydrogen Sulfide Sulfur Ammonia Nitrite Carbon Monoxide Phosphite Iron

16. Microbial Physiologies At least 10,000,000 organic molecules are made by living things These are grouped into ~100 classes of molecules Only about half of these have a known microbial pathway for making them or for breaking them down

17. 80% of current genomes come from only three bacterial kingdoms ~30 bacterial kingdoms have no sequenced genomes The number of genes shared between two species in different kingdoms are <5% Only two genes are shared in all sequenced prokaryotic genomes Do We Really Need More Microbial Genomes?