Nov 21, 2024  
2024-2025 Graduate Academic Catalog-June 
    
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2024-2025 Graduate Academic Catalog-June
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CVE 5423 - Ecological Aspects of Environmental Microbiology

3 lecture hours 0 lab hours 3 credits
Course Description
This course examines processes mediated by bacteria in the natural and built environment. This includes areas such as nutrient transformations, decomposition of organic matter, pathogenesis, and use of microbes as vectors of genetic material. Adaptations that make these organisms fit for their functions will be identified, as well as how they interact with populations of other organisms and conditions in their native and non-native environments.  
Prereq: None
Note: This course is open to qualified undergraduate students.
Course Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  • Explain how environmental conditions affect nitrogen transformations such as nitritation, nitrification and anammox
  • Identify conditions that support the proliferation of environmental pathogens
  • Develop an understanding of how the inter-related activities of a consortium of microbes can function to create a pathway for degradation of organic matter
  • Use scientific literature to define the distribution and significance of specific bacteria of special importance to use of the natural environment by humans
Prerequisites by Topic
  • None
Course Topics
  • Nitrogen transformations
    • Ammonia to nitrate
    • Nitrite to nitrogen gas
    • Ammonia to nitrogen gas (anammox)
  • Phosphorus accumulation
    • Rhodocyclus
    • Acinetobacter
  • Acetogenesis
  • Role of Clostridium in anaerobic decomposition of organic matter
  • Methanogenic bacteria
    • hydrogenic
    • acetogenic
  • Pfiesteria   - variation in life cycle & pathogenicity
  • HAB (harmful algal blooms) bacteria
    • Microcystis
    • Red tide - dinoflagellates
  • Escherichia coli
    • Life outside of its normal host
    • Fate in aquatic systems - effects of temperature, nutrients, other biota
    • Pathogenicity & genome variation
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa 
    • Utility in biodegradation
    • Pathogenicity for cystic fibrosis patients
  • Aquatic hyphomycete fungi and their role in degradation of cellulosic material
Coordinator
Dr. Anne Alexander


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