Question

Why is it important to subculture bacteria?

Answer 1

The process of subculturing involves the transferring bacteria from one growth container to another, which provides the bacteria with new fresh supply of nutrients on solid or a liquid medium. Subculturing helps the analyst to change the parameters of a microbe’s habitat, like it's temperature and physical environment, to obtain information used in species identification. Understanding where a microbial culture lives or dies helps in isolating its strain. In some instances, a microbial culture can also be identified based on the length of time needed for new growth to appear after the subculture transfer.

extra-

Petri dishes with agar, which is a gelatinous substance made from seaweed, are used as a solid environment to grow microorganisms. When a liquid environment is needed, an artificial nutrient broth is used. Cultures with mixed microorganisms that are grown in a broth need to be subcultured onto a solid media to isolate colonies for accurate identification. Once it's on the agar surface, each microbe colony represents a single species of microorganism, originating from the multiplication of a single cell. This defined and isolated colony is called a pure culture and is an essential starting point in microbiological research.