Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Bacterial Diversity And Function Within An Epigenic Cave System And Implications For Other Limestone Cave Systems, Kathleen Merritt Brannen-Donnelly Dec 2015

Bacterial Diversity And Function Within An Epigenic Cave System And Implications For Other Limestone Cave Systems, Kathleen Merritt Brannen-Donnelly

Doctoral Dissertations

There are approximately 48,000 known cave systems in the United States of America, with caves formed in carbonate karst terrains being the most common. Epigenic systems develop from the downward flow of meteoric water through carbonate bedrock and the solutional enlargement of interconnected subsurface conduits. Despite carbonate karst aquifers being globally extensive and important drinking water sources, microbial diversity and function are poorly understood compared to other Earth environments. After several decades of research, studies have shown that microorganisms in caves affect water quality, rates of carbonate dissolution and precipitation, and ecosystem nutrition through organic matter cycling. However, limited prior …


Rare Occurrences Of Free-Living Bacteria Belonging To Sedimenticola From Subtidal Seagrass Beds Associated With The Lucinid Clam, Stewartia Floridana, Aaron M. Goemann Dec 2015

Rare Occurrences Of Free-Living Bacteria Belonging To Sedimenticola From Subtidal Seagrass Beds Associated With The Lucinid Clam, Stewartia Floridana, Aaron M. Goemann

Masters Theses

Lucinid clams and their sulfur-oxidizing endosymbionts comprise two compartments of a three-stage, biogeochemical relationship among the clams, seagrasses, and microbial communities in marine sediments. A population of the lucinid clam, Stewartia floridana, was sampled from a subtidal seagrass bed at Bokeelia Island Seaport in Florida to test the hypotheses: (1) S. floridana, like other lucinids, are more abundant in seagrass beds than bare sediments; (2) S. floridana gill microbiomes are dominated by one bacterial operational taxonomic unit (OTU) at a sequence similarity threshold level of 97% (a common cutoff for species level taxonomy) from 16S rRNA genes; …


Image-Charge Detection €“ Novel Instrumentation And Applications, Brandon Lee Barney Oct 2015

Image-Charge Detection €“ Novel Instrumentation And Applications, Brandon Lee Barney

Theses and Dissertations

Image-charge detection is an analytical technique in which a highly-charged particle is detected by the magnitude of the image current that it generates in a detecting electrode. This current is represented as a voltage between the charged particle and the sensing electrode. It is a single particle detection method, ideal for the analysis of large, variable mass particles such as biological cells. Some of the physical properties of Bacillus subtilis spores were explored using different applications of image-charge detection. B. subtilis is a gram-negative spore-forming bacteria that has been shown to exhibit extremophile behavior. The particular extremophile behavior that was …


Dna Analysis Of Surfactant Associated Bacteria In The Sea Surface Microlayer In Application To Satellite Remote Sensing Techniques: Case Studies In The Straits Of Florida And The Gulf Of Mexico, Bryan Hamilton May 2015

Dna Analysis Of Surfactant Associated Bacteria In The Sea Surface Microlayer In Application To Satellite Remote Sensing Techniques: Case Studies In The Straits Of Florida And The Gulf Of Mexico, Bryan Hamilton

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Several genera of bacteria residing in the sea surface microlayer and in the near-surface layer of the ocean have been found to be involved in the production and decay of surfactants. Under low wind speed conditions, surfactants can suppress short gravity capillary waves at the sea surface and form natural sea slicks. These features can be observed with both airborne and satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Using a new microlayer sampling method, a series of experiments have been conducted in the Straits of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico in 2013 to establish a connection between the presence of surfactant-associated …


Potential For Biocontrol Of Environmental Vibrio Spp. By Predatory Bacteria Bacteriovorax, Patrick Tennis Apr 2015

Potential For Biocontrol Of Environmental Vibrio Spp. By Predatory Bacteria Bacteriovorax, Patrick Tennis

OES Theses and Dissertations

The scale of predator-prey interactions varies from the iconic (e.g., lions and gazelles) to the microscopic (e.g., protists and bacteria). Bdellovibrio-and-like-organisms (BALOs) are bacteria that prey upon other Gram-negative bacteria, including pathogens. In particular, the halophilic genus Vibrio, many species of which are disease agents, has been shown to be susceptible to attack by BALOs. One motivation of the present research is to assess the potential for biocontrol of Vibrio by Bacteriovorax. This investigation is the first to test the susceptibility of Vibrio strains (n = 26) originating from a variety of geographic locations to predation by …