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microorganism
A microorganism (from the Greek: ??????, mikros, "small" and ??????????, organismós, "organism") is a microscopic organism, which may be a single cell[1] or multicellular organism. The study of microorganisms is called microbiology, a subject that began with Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of microorganisms in 1675, using a microscope of his own design.
Microorganisms are very diverse and include all the bacteria and archaea and almost all theprotozoa. They also include some members of the fungi, algae, and animals such as rotifers. Many macro animals and plants have juvenile stages which are also microorganisms. Some microbiologists also classify viruses as microorganisms, but others consider these as nonliving.[2][3] Most microorganisms are microscopic, but there are some bacteria such as Thiomargarita namibiensis[4] and some protozoa such as Stentor, which are macroscopic and visible to the naked eye.
IUCN
IUCN supports scientific research, manages field projects globally and brings governments, non-government organizations, United Nations agencies, companies and local communities together to develop and implement policy. IUCN is the world's oldest and largest global environmental network—a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries. IUCN's work is supported by more than 1,000 professional staff in more than 40 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world. The Union's headquarters are located in Gland,Switzerland, near Geneva
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; in French: Union internationale pour la conservation de la nature, UICN) is an international organizationdedicated to finding "pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges".[1] The organization publishes the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which assesses the conservation status of species
PATHOGEN
A pathogen (Greek: ????? pathos “suffering, passion” and -????? -gen?s “producer of”) in the oldest and broadest sense is anything that can produce disease.[1] Typically the term is used to mean an infectious agent (colloquially known as a germ) — amicroorganism, in the widest sense such as a virus, bacterium, prion, fungus or protozoan, that causes disease in its host. The host may be an animal, a plant, a fungus or even another microorganism
Lichens
Living as a symbiont in a lichen appears to be a successful way for a fungus to derive essential nutrients, as about 20% of all fungal species have acquired this mode of life. The largest number of lichenized fungi occur in the Ascomycota, with about 40% of species forming such an association.[17]Some of these lichenized fungi occur in orders with non lichenized fungi that live as saprotrophs orplant parasites (for example, the Leotiales, Dothideales, and Pezizales). Other lichen fungi occur in only five orders in which all members are engaged in this habit (Orders Graphidales, Gyalectales,Peltigerales, Pertusariales, and Teloschistales). Lichenized and non lichenized fungi can even be found in the same genus or species. Overall, about 98% of lichens have an ascomycetous mycobiont. Next to the Ascomycota, the largest number of lichenized fungi occur in the unassigned fungi imperfecti. Comparatively few Basidiomycetes are lichenized, but these include agarics, such as species of Lichenomphalia, clavarioid fungi, such as species of Multiclavula, and corticioid fungi, such as species of Dictyonema.
alga
The The algal or cyanobacterial cells are photosynthetic, and as in plants they reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide into organic carbon sugars to feed both symbionts. Both partners gain water and mineral nutrients mainly from the atmosphere, through rain and dust. The fungal partner protects the alga by retaining water, serving as a larger capture area for mineral nutrients and, in some cases, provides minerals obtained from the substrate. If a cyanobacterium is present, as a primary partner or another symbiont in addition to green alga as in certain tripartite lichens, they can fix atmospheric nitrogen, complementing the activities of the green alga.
Bacteria
There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial cells in a millilitre of fresh water. There are approximately 5×1030 bacteria on Earth,[4] forming a biomass which exceeds that of all plants and animals.[5] Bacteria are vital in recycling nutrients, with many of the stages in nutrient cycles dependent on these organisms, such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere and putrefaction. In the biological communities surrounding hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, bacteria provide the nutrients needed to sustain life by converting dissolved compounds such as hydrogen sulphide and methane to energy. On 17 March 2013, researchers reported data that suggested bacterial life forms thrive in the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot on the Earth.[6][7] Other researchers reported related studies that microbes thrive inside rocks up to 1900 feet below the sea floor under 8500 feet of ocean off the coast of the northwestern United States.[6][8] According to one of the researchers,"You can find microbes everywhere — they're extremely adaptable to conditions, and survive wherever they are."[6]
Most bacteria have not been characterized, and only about half of the phyla of bacteria have species that can be grown in the laboratory.[9] The study of bacteria is known as bacteriology, a branch of microbiology.
There are approximately ten times as many bacterial cells in the human flora as there are human cells in the body, with the largest number of the human flora being in the gut flora, and a large number on the skin.[10] The vast majority of the bacteria in the body are rendered harmless by the protective effects of the immune system, and some are beneficial. However, several species of bacteria are pathogenic and cause infectious diseases, including cholera, syphilis, anthrax, leprosy, and bubonic plague. The most common fatal bacterial diseases are respiratory infections, with tuberculosis alone killing about 2 million people a year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.[11] In developed countries, antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections and are also used in farming, making antibiotic resistance a growing problem. In industry, bacteria are important in sewage treatment and the breakdown of oil spills, the production of cheese and yogurt through fermentation, and the recovery of gold, palladium, copper and other metals in the mining sector,[12] as well as inbiotechnology, and the manufacture of antibiotics and other chemicals.[13]
Once regarded as plants constituting the class Schizomycetes, bacteria are now classified as prokaryotes. Unlike cells of animals and other eukaryotes, bacterial cells do not contain a nucleus and rarely harbour membrane-bound organelles. Although the term bacteria traditionally included all prokaryotes, the scientific classification changed after the discovery in the 1990s that prokaryotes consist of two very different groups of organisms that evolved from an ancient common ancestor. These evolutionary domains are called Bacteria and Archaea
Bacteria
Bacteria (
i/bæk?t??ri?/; singular: bacterium) constitute a large domain ofprokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a number of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste,[2] and the deep portions of Earth's crust. Bacteria also live in symbiotic and parasitic relationships with plants and animals. They are also known to have flourished in manned spacecraft
fungus
A fungus (/?f????s/; plural: fungi[3] or funguses[4]) is any member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds (British English: moulds), as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, protists, and bacteria. One major difference is that fungal cells have cell walls that contain chitin, unlike the cell walls of plants and some protists, which contain cellulose, and unlike the cell walls of bacteria. These and other differences show that the fungi form a single group of related organisms, named the Eumycota that share a common ancestor (is a monophyletic group). This fungal group is distinct from the structurally similar myxomycetes (slime molds) and oomycetes (water molds). The discipline of biology devoted to the study of fungi is known as mycology (from the Greek ?????, muk?s, meaning "fungus"). Mycology has often been regarded as a branch of botany, even though it is a separate kingdom in biological taxonomy. Genetic studies have shown that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants.
protozoa
In some biological taxonomy schemes, Protozoa are a diverse group of mostly mobile unicellulareukaryotic organisms,[1] but the term is no longer used in modern taxonomy.
Historically, protozoa were defined as unicellular protists with animal-like behaviour, such asmovement. Protozoa were regarded as the partner group of protists to protophyta, which have plant-like behavior, e.g. photosynthesis. The term protozoan has become highly problematic due to the introduction of modern ultrastructural, biochemical, and genetic techniques, which have showed that the group does not form a clade as required by modern classifications. Modern unicellular clades within Eukaryotes which may be viewed as approximately collectively replacing the class of protozoa include: Excavata, Amoebae, Chromalveolata and Rhizaria.
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is a chemical element with chemical symbol H and atomic number 1. With anatomic weight of 1.00794 u, hydrogen is the lightest element on the periodic table. Itsmonatomic form (H) is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, constituting roughly 75% of all baryonic mass.[7][note 1] Non-remnant stars are mainly composed of hydrogen in its plasma state. The most common isotope of hydrogen, termed protium (name rarely used, symbol 1H), has a single proton and zero neutrons.