Bacteria Lab Essay

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Bacteria Lab AP Biology Bacteria Lab over School Sinks Purpose/Problem Statement: The main purpose of the “Bacteria Lab Over School Sink” was to learn more about bacteria, where is it found, how cleaning can affect the amount of bacteria, and compare data samples between boys and girls hygiene. Background: According to Biology Online bacterium or bacteria is a microscopic, single celled organism(s) which belong to a kingdom named Monera. These organisms have a prokaryotic cell structure. When an organism is prokaryotic it means that the cells lack membrane-bound organelles. Bacteria are highly successful when reproducing and adapting due to their reproductive time (1-pg. 557). The typical structures of a bacteria cell are as follows, flagella, pili, sex pilus, fimbriae, cell wall, plasma membrane, ribosomes, inclusions, chromosome, and plasmid. Bacteria use something called a flagella, it is a tail looking structure composed of protein, for movement (Citation 9). A pilus is a hair-like characteristic found on the outside of bacteria. Bacteria use their pili to connect to its species, or other species, and ultimately build a bridge from the interior, which enables plasmid exchange that can lead to antibiotic resistance. A sex pilus stabilizes bacterial mating during the exchange of DNA (Citation 8). Under the best conditions, bacteria can divide every 1-3 hours, and even some species can make a new generation in 20 minutes. Prokaryotic reproduction is limited due to the resources. Normally, cells exhaust their nutrient supply, poison themselves with metabolic waste, face competition with other microorganisms, or are consumed by other organisms. (3- pg. 559) Bacteria cells can divide in two different types of asexual reproduction, which are binary fission and spores. (Bio. On.) Asexual reproduction is the replication of cells with one identical
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