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    The Role of Microbes in The Earth's Ecology A Term Paper

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    Mary Joyce Ungsod
    Microbes play a crucial role in ecosystems by decomposing dead organic matter and recycling nutrients back into the environment. They are also involved in important processes like the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Microbes were the first living organisms on Earth and have helped shape the planet. While some microbes cause disease, many are beneficial and even necessary for life, such as those that help break down food and produce nutrients in soil. Microbes could impact climate change through producing and consuming greenhouse gases, but more research is needed to understand these relationships and effects.

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    The Role of Microbes in The Earth's Ecology A Term Paper

    Uploaded by

    Mary Joyce Ungsod
    64 views3 pages
    Microbes play a crucial role in ecosystems by decomposing dead organic matter and recycling nutrients back into the environment. They are also involved in important processes like the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Microbes were the first living organisms on Earth and have helped shape the planet. While some microbes cause disease, many are beneficial and even necessary for life, such as those that help break down food and produce nutrients in soil. Microbes could impact climate change through producing and consuming greenhouse gases, but more research is needed to understand these relationships and effects.

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    Microbes play a crucial role in ecosystems by decomposing dead organic matter and recycling nutrients back into the environment. They are also involved in important processes like the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Microbes were the first living organisms on Earth and have helped shape the planet. While some microbes cause disease, many are beneficial and even necessary for life, such as those that help break down food and produce nutrients in soil. Microbes could impact climate change through producing and consuming greenhouse gases, but more research is needed to understand these relationships and effects.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    64 views3 pages

    The Role of Microbes in The Earth's Ecology A Term Paper

    Uploaded by

    Mary Joyce Ungsod
    Microbes play a crucial role in ecosystems by decomposing dead organic matter and recycling nutrients back into the environment. They are also involved in important processes like the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Microbes were the first living organisms on Earth and have helped shape the planet. While some microbes cause disease, many are beneficial and even necessary for life, such as those that help break down food and produce nutrients in soil. Microbes could impact climate change through producing and consuming greenhouse gases, but more research is needed to understand these relationships and effects.

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    The Role of Microbes in the Earth's Ecology

    A Term Paper

    Presented to:

    Ms. Maria Lorrybeth Combong

    In Partial Fulfillment

    of the Requirements for the Course

    MST 102

    by:

    Mary Joyce V. Ungsod

    BSN 2B

    February 26, 2020


    Microbes are tiny living things that are found all around us and are too small to be seen
    by the naked eye. They live in water, soil, and in the air. The human body is home to millions of
    these microbes too, also called microorganisms. Some microbes make us sick, others are
    important for our health.

    Microbes were the first living creatures on earth, and are essential to life. Microbes live
    in the soil, on rocks, inside roots, buried under miles of Earth, in compost piles and toxic waste,
    and all over the Earth's surface. Microbes are found in boiling hot springs and on frozen
    snowfields.

    Microorganisms form part of that cycle, and because of their huge numbers, the part they
    play is an important one. Microorganisms have several vital roles in ecosystems: decomposition,
    oxygen production, evolution, and symbiotic relationships. Decomposition is where dead animal
    or plant matter is broken down into more basic molecules. This process only happens because of
    the microorganisms that find their way into the dead matter. The process of decomposition
    provides nutrients that future plants and animals will be able to reuse, making soil more fertile.
    Plants would not continue to grow without it - not to mention the world be really cluttered with
    dead animals and plants without it. Oxygen cycle in microorganisms. Microorganisms are also
    involved in the removal of oxygen from the atmosphere (i.e., they are consumers of oxygen).
    The process of respiration uses oxygen to produce energy. For example, the decay of organic
    material by microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi consumes oxygen. Microbial evolution
    refers to the genetically driven changes that occur in microorganisms and that are retained over
    time. Some microbial changes can be in response to a selective pressure. The best examples of
    this are the various changes that can occur in bacteria in response to the presence of antibiotics.
    Symbiotic relationships are a special type of interaction between species. Sometimes beneficial,
    sometimes harmful, these relationships are essential to many organisms and ecosystems, and
    they provide a balance that can only be achieved by working together.

    The surfaces of the human body inside and out, for example the skin, mouth and the
    intestines, are covered in millions of individual microorganisms that don’t do us any harm. In
    fact they help to protect us from becoming infected with harmful microbes. They are known as
    the normal body flora. The number of normal bacterial cells that live on the body is in the region
    of 100 million. This number is 10 times greater than the 10 million cells that make up the human
    body.

    The microbes associated with our food tend to have a bad name – food poisoning is often
    in the news. Yet while some make us ill and others can be a nuisance by spoiling our food,
    without the activities of microbes there would no bread, cheese, beer or chocolate. Friend or foe
    – food microbes are always on the menu.
    Microbes play a crucial role in our lives. In fact we couldn’t live without them but they
    could live without us. That is because some fungi and also soil bacteria, called the decomposers,
    break down dead plants and animals and their waste products into simpler substances, called
    nutrients. These nutrients, including carbon dioxide, water, sodium and potassium are returned to
    the environment so that other living things can use them. This cyclical process by which essential
    elements are released and reused is known as recycling. All essential elements such as carbon
    and nitrogen are cycled through biochemical pathways.

    Microbes are involved in many processes, such as the carbon and nitrogen cycles, and are
    responsible for both the production and consumption of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide
    and methane. Microbes could have various positive and negative feedback responses to
    temperature, but the extent of these is not completely understood. The reason is that microbes
    live in very diverse communities that interact with other organisms and the environment in
    complex ways, which makes it difficult to make predictions about the effects of microbes on
    climate change, but scientists are trying to include microbial activity in climate change models.
    What is certain is that human activities have helped to increase the production of greenhouse
    gases by microbes.

    Microorganisms are present in almost all places on the earth. Despite their minute size,
    they have tremendous importance in the maintenance of life on the earth. Due to the difference in
    the activities of different microbes, they influence life in different ways. Some of them are very
    helpful, for example, those which fix atmospheric nitrogen into biologically useful forms, those
    which help in curd formation, those which recycle dead materials by degrading them into simpler
    substances and those which help in preparation of wine. Some other microbes are very harmful
    in that they cause diseases in plants and animals, spoil food or raw materials of food kept in
    normal conditions as well as they degrade rubber, paints, textiles, metals and even insulations on
    electric wires.

    Therefore, it is essential to study these microbes in details, so that by various techniques


    their harmful effects can be overcome and beneficial effects be utilized for enhancing quality of
    life on the earth.

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