Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T19:49:56.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopic (ESEM) Observations of Bacteria on Simulated Soil Substrates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

P. Holden  and
D. Pierce
P. Holden
Affiliation:
Donald Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, ,
D. Pierce
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106
Get access

Abstract

Conventional scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM) of the rhizosphere (soil around plant roots) has been used to describe the spatial organization of biotic (microorganisms including bacteria and fungi) and abiotic (organomineral complexes and clay platelets) constituents in soil.1 However, soil is deeper than plant rootS2 and the spatial distribution of microbes, the morphology of the microbial growth habit, and the spatial association of microbes with mineral substrates in the deeper vadose zone are little known. That subsurface terrestrial microbes catalyze most major nutrient-cycling reactions in the terrestrial biosphere3 punctuates the need to observe the true morphology of bacteria in association with mineral surfaces and microbemicrobe associations. Here, we present our use of environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) to image bacteria on unsaturated sand, a simple surrogate for heterogeneous soil. ESEM is a choice tool for high resolution imaging of combined soft and hard matter, where delicate hydrated expolymer matrices bind microbes to each other and to soil particles as biofilm.4

Type
Microbiology
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 7 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis 2001, Microscopy Society of America 59th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 35th Annual Meeting, Long Beach, California August 5-9, 2001 , August 2001 , pp. 736 - 737
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Foster, R.C. et al.Ultrastructure of the Root-Soil Interface, St. Paul The American Phytopathological Society (1983)157.Google Scholar
2.Richter, D. D. and Markewitz, D.. How Deep is Soil? BioScience. (1995)600CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3.Schlesinger, W. H..Biogeochemistry: An Analysis of Global Change, San Diego Academic Press (1997)588.Google Scholar
4.Characklis, W. G. and Marshall, K.C.. Biofilms New York Wiley (1989) 796Google Scholar
5.This research was supported by the National Science Foundation BES-99772.Google Scholar