Culturing The Deep Subsurface

Natalia Obrzut, Caitlin Casar, and Magdalena Osburn
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We observed cell morphologies (Fig. 6) and growth patterns (Fig. 7) to characterize isolate strains. Morphology is a systematic way to describe the way microbes look so we can try to distinguish them at a coarse level. All isolates were rod-shaped except for the more diverse aerobic heterotrophs which included cocci and sporulating filaments. As a whole aerobic heterotrophs grew faster and to a higher optical density than nitrate reducers. Nitrate reducers had a longer and more pronounced lag time before entering into exponential growth. The autotrophs isolates did not grow to a visible density and could not be easily measured with the spectrophotometer; therefore, we detected growth via microscopy.

Natalia Obrzut
Loyola University Chicago