Question

Describe the following briefly:

What detrimental and beneficial effects can bacteria have on humans?

Bacteria evolutionary adaptations to survive harsh environmental conditions.

Bacteria abilities to "develop" antibiotic resistance.

Roles prokaryotes play in our biosphere.

Answer 1

Detrimental and beneficial effects of bacteria: The detrimental effect are many more as the bacteria causes many type of diseases. When bacterial infection occurs it may causes many dangerous diseases for example tubeculosis is caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis, cholera is caused by vibrio cholerae etc. Bacteria not only show harmful effect rather it is also benificial to human beings. For example E.coli and many other bacteri present in human gut play an important role in digestion process as well as in synthesis of some vitamins also.

Bacteria evolutionary adaptation: Bacteria have acquired many evolutionary adaptations to survive in harsh environmental conditions. For example, bacteria forms endospores which can withstand very harsh conditions like high temperature, high sock etc.

Bacteria abilities to "develop" antibiotic resistance: Bacteria may develop resistance to antibiotic. For example many bacteria has developed resistance against tetracycline. They developed a gene which code for the protein which inhibit the interaction of tetracycline and bacterial ribosomes (tetracycline inhibits bacterial growth by binding with bacterial ribosomes)

Roles prokaryotes play in our biosphere: Bacteria play a major role in waste degradation. For example bacteria decomose the dead body of animal and thus helps in recycling of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen to the biosphere.