http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2011/09/26/beneficial-bacteria-12-ways-microbes-help-the-environment/

We have become obsessed with eliminating bacteria, attacking with gels and wipes the microbes we associate with infection, illness and death. But not only are many types of bacteria actually helpful, some strains may hold the key to fighting global warming, cleaning up pollution, breaking down plastic and even developing a cure for cancer. These 12 amazing discoveries demonstrate the many ways in which microscopic organisms help maintain the health of our own bodies and the entire planet.

Gulf Oil Spill Gases Eaten by Bacteria

(images via: wikimedia commons)

Certain types of bacteria can actually clean up troublesome environmental pollutants like spilled petroleum. In fact, a specific strain called Alcanivorax drastically increases in population when an oil spill provides them with large amounts of food, so that they’re able to remove much of the oil. They’re at work on the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico right now, and while they certainly can’t undo the vast damage that has been done to this region as a result, they definitely provide a beneficial effect.

Bacteria Eat Pollution and Generate Electricity

(images via: science news)

Bacteria with tiny wire-like appendages called nanowires not only digest toxic waste – including PCBs and chemical solvents – they produce electricity while they’re at it. One type in particular, called Shewanella, is a deep-sea bacteria that grows these oxygen-seeking nanowires when placed in low-oxygen environments. Researchers discovered that when the microbes’ nanowires are pricked with platinum electrodes, they can carry a current. If these capabilities can be harnessed effectively, they could one day be used in sewage treatment plants to simultaneously digest waste and power the facilities.

Geobacter Consume Radioactive Contamination

(images via: wikimedia commons, sharenator)

The nanowires grown by certain types of bacteria can also be used to immobilize harmful materials – like uranium – and keep them from spreading. A research team at Michigan State University has learned that Geobacter bacteria, which is found naturally in soil, essentially electroplates uranium, rendering it insoluble so it can’t dissolve and contaminate groundwater. These bacteria can be brought into uranium contamination sites like mines and nuclear plants in order to contain the radiation, potentially limiting the disastrous consequences of these types of spills.

Plastic-Eating Bacteria Breaks Down Bags

(image via: katerha)

Non-biodegradable and far too ubiquitous on this planet, plastic becomes a big problem when it comes to disposal. But in 2008, a Canadian student carried out a truly amazing science experiment in which bacteria were able to consume plastic. Since then, research teams have been working on developing this ability and using it to our benefit. A professor at the University of Dublin got the bacteria to metabolize cooked-down plastic bottles into a new type of plastic that’s actually biodegradable.

Earlier this year, scientists discovered that bacteria are already breaking down plastic debris in the world’s oceans on their own, though they’re not yet sure whether this will have a positive or negative effect on the environment. Items like fishing line and plastic bags are devoured by these

bacteria; the problem is that the waste that the bacteria then produce could potentially be harmful to ocean ecosystems as it travels up the food chain.

Nylon-Eating Bacteria Clean Up Factory Waste

(image via: ingrid taylar)

We count on a polymer called Nylon 6 for all kinds of everyday uses like toothbrushes, surgical sutures, ropes, hosiery and strings for instruments like violins. The manufacture of this material produces toxic byproducts that get carried out in waste water – but – you guessed it – there’s a bacterium for that, too. Flavobacterium actually evolved to produce special enzymes to digest these byproducts that they didn’t have previously, and that aren’t seen in similar bacterial strains.

In fact, the ability to produce these enzymes in order to consume a material that didn’t even exist prior to the invention of nylon in 1935 is often used as evidence against the theory of creationism, which denies that any new information can be added to a genome by mutation.

Metabolizing Methane, A Greenhouse Gas

(images via: livescience)

One of the most dangerous greenhouse gases, methane is produced by all sorts of industrial and natural processes, including the decomposition of our own waste and that of livestock. Scientists fighting global warming are struggling to find ways to control the effects of methane, but one solution could come from a simple single-celled microorganism. Some types of bacteria use copper from the environment to metabolize methane, eliminating both the greenhouse gas and toxic heavy metals all at once.

Researchers are still trying to determine how to use this in real-world applications, but some options may include venting methane emissions through filters of these bacteria. What’s more, after eating the methane, the bacteria turn it into methanol – so we can harvest their waste for use as fuel.

Turning Newspapers into Car Fuel

(images via: striatic)

Microbes named T-103, found in animal waste, can produce the biofuel butanol by eating paper. Tulane University developed a method for growing the cellulose-consuming microbes so they can produce fuel in the presence of oxygen, which is lethal to other butanol-producing bacteria. This could make the whole fuel production process far less expensive and thus more potentially applicable in the real world. The researchers say that butanol produces more energy than ethanol, which is produced from corn sugar, and doesn’t require engine modifications. It can also be carried through existing fuel pipelines.

Soil-Dwelling Bacteria Kills Cancer

(images via: wikimedia commons)

Cancer and bacteria don’t go well together – at least, when you’re talking about immune response. But one type of bacteria, called Clostridium sporogenes, may actually be used to deliver drugs in cancer therapy thanks to its ability to target tumors. Professor Nigel Minton of the University of Nottingham has learned that C. sporogenes will only grow in oxygen-depleted environments – like the center of solid tumors. When injected into a tumor log with cancer drugs, the bacteria can help the drugs kill the tumor cells without affecting healthy tissue. Researchers expect to have a streamlined strain developed for use in a clinical trial by 2013.

Panda Poop Bacteria Makes Biofuel

(images via: wikimedia commons)

“Who would have guessed that ‘panda poop’ might help solve one of the major hurdles to producing biofuels, which is optimizing the breakdown of the raw plant materials used to make the fuels?” says Ashli Brown, Ph.D., co-author of a study on how bacteria in panda feces can break down a super-tough plant material known as lignocellulose. This discovery could speed up development of plant-based biofuels that don’t rely on food crops. Several types of digestive bacteria found in the panda feces are similar to those found in termites, which of course are pros at digesting wood.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that panda waste will suddenly be in demand for the production of biofuels – that would probably be a lost cause, given the extremely precarious status of the species. The bacteria that have been identified for their cellulose-processing abilities will be isolated and grown on a commercial scale. However, it does prove how important biodiversity really is, and that many species around the world may have more to offer than we realize.

Turning Human Waste into Rocket Fuel

(images via: elvertbarnes, wikimedia commons)

Pandas aren’t the only species whose waste may hold the key to producing fuel. With the help of the bacteria Brocadia anammoxidans, human sewage could be transformed into hydrazine, better known as rocket fuel. The bacteria naturally consume ammonia and produce hydrazine in the process. Until their discovery, scientists thought that hydrazine was only a man-made substance. However, this is less of a boon to NASA than it is to sewage treatment plants. In standard plants, waste-eating bacteria require oxygen to be pumped in with power-chugging equipment, so this development could save a lot of money.

http://textbookofbacteriology.net/Impact.html

Oxygenic photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae and cyanobacteria. It is the type of photosynthesis that results in the production of O2 in the atmosphere. At least 50 percent of the O2 on earth is produced by photosynthetic microorganisms (algae and cyanobacteria), and for at least a billion years before plants evolved, microbes were the only organisms producing O2 on earth. O2 is required by many types of organisms, including animals, in their respiratory processes.

The cyanobacterium, Synechococcus, is a primary component of marine and freshwater plankton and microbial mats, The unicellular procaryote is involved in primary production, nitrogen fixation and oxygenic photosynthesis and thereby participates in the cycles of carbon, nitrogen

and oxygen. Synechococcus is among the most important photosynthetic bacteria in marine environments, estimated to account for about 25 percent of the primary production that occurs in typical marine habitats.

Beneficial Effects of Microorganisms

Microbes are everywhere in the biosphere, and their presence invariably affects the environment that they are growing in. The effects of microorganisms on their environment can be beneficial or harmful or inapparent with regard to human measure or observation. Since a good part of this text concerns harmful activities of microbes (i.e., agents of disease) this chapter counters with a discussion of the beneficial activities and exploitations of microorganisms as they relate to human culture.

The beneficial effects of microbes derive from their metabolic activities in the environment, their associations with plants and animals, and from their use in food production and biotechnological processes.

Nutrient Cycling and the Cycles of Elements that Make Up Living Systems

At an elemental level, the substances that make up living material consist of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), sulfur (S), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), iron (Fe), sodium (Na), calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg). The primary constituents of organic material are C, H, O, N, S, and P. An organic compound always contains C and H and is symbolized as CH2O (the empirical formula for glucose). Carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered an inorganic form of carbon.

The most significant effect of the microorganisms on earth is their ability to recycle the primary elements that make up all living systems, especially carbon (C), oxygen (O) and nitrogen (N). These elements occur in different molecular forms that must be shared among all types of life. Different forms of carbon and nitrogen are needed as nutrients by different types of organisms. The diversity of metabolism that exists in the microbes ensures that these elements will be available in their proper form for every type of life. The most important aspects of microbial metabolism that are involved in the cycles of nutrients are discussed below.

Primary production involves photosynthetic organisms which take up CO2 in the atmosphere and convert it to organic (cellular) material. The process is also called CO2 fixation, and it accounts for a very large portion of organic carbon available for synthesis of cell material. Although terrestrial plants are obviously primary producers, planktonic algae and cyanobacteria account for nearly half of the primary production on the planet. These unicellular organisms which float in the ocean are the "grass of the sea", and they are the source of carbon from which marine life is derived.

NASA receives data from the Terra and Aqua satellites which measures net primary productivity on Earth. These false-color maps represents the rate at which photosynthetic organisms absorb carbon out of the atmosphere. The yellow and red areas show the highest rates, ranging from 2 to 3 kilograms of carbon taken in per square meter per year. The green, blue, and purple shades show progressively lower productivity. Tropical rain forests are generally the most productive places on Earth. However, primary productivity near the sea�s surface over such a widespread area of the Earth makes the ocean roughly as productive as the land. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NPP/npp.html

Decomposition or biodegradation results in the breakdown of complex organic materials to forms of carbon that can be used by other organisms. There is no naturally-occurring organic compound that cannot me degraded by some microbe, although some synthetic compounds such as teflon, styrofoam, plastics, insecticides and pesticides are broken down slowly or not at all. Through the metabolic processes of fermentation and respiration, organic molecules are eventually broken down to CO2 which is returned to the atmosphere.

Waste management, whether in compost, landfills or sewage treatment facilities, exploits activities of microbes in the carbon cycle. Organic (solid) materials are digested by microbial enzymes into substrates that eventually are converted to a few organic acids and carbon dioxide.

Nitrogen fixation is a process found only in some bacteria which removes N2 from the atmosphere and converts it to ammonia (NH3), for use by plants and animals. Nitrogen fixation also results in replenishment of soil nitrogen removed by agricultural processes. Some bacteria fix nitrogen in symbiotic associations in plants. Other Nitrogen-fixing bacteria are free-living in soil and aquatic habitats.

Some habitats like this cactus community in the Sonoran Desert, rely on nitrogen-fixing bacteria at the base of the food chain as the source of nitrogen for maintenance of cell material. Every plant in this scene depends ultimately on biological nitrogen fixation. http://helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/bto/microbes/nitrogen.htm