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Microbiology

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FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

2016

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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Screening Of Plants For Antibacterial Properties: Growth Inhibition Of Staphylococcus Aureus By Artemisia Tridentata, Steven Ross Eichelbaum Nov 2016

Screening Of Plants For Antibacterial Properties: Growth Inhibition Of Staphylococcus Aureus By Artemisia Tridentata, Steven Ross Eichelbaum

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drug-resistant pathogenic and opportunistic bacteria are increasing in occurrence and prevalence, and pose a dangerous threat to human health. In the search for novel antibiotics with which to combat this threat, plants, specifically those used in traditional medicine with ascribed antibacterial properties, offer a promising and potentially vast source of such therapeutic compounds. The purpose of this study was therefore to screen chemical extracts created from various plant species for antibacterial properties versus pathogenic bacterial species. In the course of these antibacterial assays, we successfully identified a methanol extract derived from Artemisia tridentata tridentata plant material as capable of inhibiting …


Controls On Benthic Microbial Community Structure And Assembly In A Karstic Coastal Wetland, Nicholas O. Schulte Mar 2016

Controls On Benthic Microbial Community Structure And Assembly In A Karstic Coastal Wetland, Nicholas O. Schulte

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The assembly mechanisms underlying microbial community abundance, biotic interactions, and diversity over space and time are unresolved, particularly in benthic microbial mats distributed along environmental gradients. Experimental enrichment of nutrient-limited microbial mats from the Florida Everglades along a nutrient subsidy-salinity stress gradient stimulated autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism, growth, and diversity independent of autotroph-heterotroph interactions across treatments and space. These results suggest spatial segregation of autotrophic and heterotrophic components within mats. Considering only the diatom component of Everglades mats over space and time, the subsidy-stress gradient controlled diatom compositional turnover at broad spatial scales while environmental and dispersal-based processes structured diatom …