Applied Microbiology

Flora in Soil & Water Microbiology

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Soil & Water/ Marine Microbiology although are a part of Environmental Microbiology, but, the studies in these fields are so vast, that they deserve to be treated as a sseparate field. Microbes are found to be in quite close association with both, the soil as well as water. Winogradsky column, the suppossedly natural ecoxystem, the universe within a small columnm is a great example of the microbial interactions with soil & water. 

Soil & Water Microbiology are two highly different, yet inter-related fields of Microbiology. Soil microbiology deals with the flora, or rather the microbes in the soil and underground and the interactions of these microbes with plants and/or with the soil itself, while water microbiology deals with the interactions of the microbes with their environments in aquatic eco-systems.

The soils are rich and fertile due to presence of the sheer number of microbes in them, which feed on the numerous organic and in-organic substances, living and non-living organisms thereby maintaining the balance of various elements and nutrients and also the density of the soil- this is the primary agenda behind the study of Soil Microbiology. However, one thing to be noted is that it is not only the soil, plant and animal remains in the soil that make it rich in nutrients, rather it’s the microbes, and their active metabolism, their inter-relationship & inter-dependency with the soil that increases the soil fertility. Soil Microbiology 101 dictates that soil is the most vibrant and natural ecological platform of microbial interactions due to the presence of the ever-favourable conditions that the soil provides which allows the active biochemical, biological, molecular and physical reactions to take place uninterruptedly.  

Marine Microbiology is the most diversified field of Microbiology. With an active and excessively high diversity of microbes in water eco-system- both fresh & marine, still and running waters, which spans   all known groups of microbes like  Bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya, fungi, virus, nematodes, protozoans and many unknown and unexplored microbes in the unknown depths of waters. Marine Microbiology is complex with numerous mysteries, differences, and highly unexplored field of Microbiology. It studies vary according to the regions of the water bodies, availability of oxygen, light and that of nutrients.