Reference no: EM133352792

Questions

1. An unknown bacterial strain appears purple after Gram staining. What does this tell you about the bacterium and why does that matter?

2. What was the Gram status of the bacterial species you stained? Is this the expected result? If not, why?

3. How do the Archaebacteria differ from the true Bacteria? What key difference was used by Woese to suggest separating the two domains?

4. Which of the environmental samples had the highest microbial diversity? How did you estimate the diversity?

5. What factors could influence the diversity seen on the environmental sample plates?

6. Describe the function of the following structures or cellular components:

a. Nucleoid

b. Cell wall

c. Plasma membrane

d. Pili

e. Glycocalyx

7. Describe the structure of the cell wall in bacterial species. What is the primary composition? How does this affect Gram staining?

8. What are the three main shapes of bacterial cells? Include the names, description and a bacterial species as an example.

9. Can changes in the sequence of a gene or protein be used to determine evolutionary relatedness? Why or why not?

10. How do you explain the differences between humans and chimpanzees when their cytochrome c sequence is identical?

11. Examine the birds listed in Figure 3. What types of food do you expect to find on an island inhabited by each type of bird?