CHAPTER 4 – MICROORGANISMS

General characteristics of microorganism

 Very tiny (one celled organism)
 They are living things, thus can breathe. When they breathe, they take in
oxygen and release carbon dioxide.
 Can only be seen under the microscope unless they join together and
make a colony like green slime or a larger body like fungus (fungi), then
can be seen in naked eyes
 Found in air, water, soil,

Examples of microorganisms
Bacteria, viruses, algae, fungi, protozoa

Bacteria Characteristics

Eg.  Tiny
 It is a living thing
E-coli,  One-celled organism
Bacillus,  It exist in various sizes, colours and shapes ie
Salmonella, spherical-shaped, rod-shaped and spiral-
Streptococcus shaped
Staphylococcus
Where found?

 Found almost everywhere in soil, water, air,

surface of plants, animal and rocks
 Also lives inside living things
 How it reproduce?

 Reproduce by dividing into two.

 If have enough warmth, moisture and food,
some of them can reproduce by fission once
every 20 minutes

What diseases?

 Some bacteria feed on the inside of living

bodies where they cause diseases.
Examples :-
Diphtheria, whooping cough, cholera,
typhoid, tuberculosis and food poisoning.
 All diseases are caused by different bacteria

How it survives?

 Bacteria can divide quite rapidly but when

condition become dry and hot, it is unsuitable
for feeding and dividing, some bacteria form
spores.
They can survive inside spores for a long time
and break out when they find warmth, food
and moisture again.
 (refer textbook page 41
Viruses Characteristics

Eg.  Tiniest of all types of microorganism - can

HIV only be seen under an electron microscope
Influenza virus
 Uncertain whether living thing (doesn’t show
any characteristics of life as below)
Movement

Virus cannot move on their own, they depend on

air or water currents outside the body and the
movement of liquids in plants and animals

Respiration and excretion

Virus do not respire, excrete or take in food for

nutrition.

Sensitivity

They are sensitive to changes in temperature and

to certain chemicals.

Growth

Virus does not grow. When the body forms, it stays

the same size.

Replication
Virus needs a cell to replicate

Basic Structure (refer textbook page 41)

 Spike: Helps the virus to enter cells where it

can start to replicate

 Envelope: Outer protective covering of the

virus

 DNA/nucleic acid: Is the replicating part of

 virus. It makes copies of itself to form new
viruses.)

 Coat: keep the virus safe

Where found?

 It can be found in various shapes, colours and

sizes.

Virus and living tissues

 Viruses do not have a cell structure.
 They can be stored like mineral specimens for
many years without changing.
 They do not feed, respire, excrete.
 When they are placed on living tissue, they
will enter the living cells and start replication
(which means they make copies of
themselves)

Replication of viruses (generally)

 During the replication process, virus will

destroy certain cells in the body:
Example :-
 Cold virus attacks the cells that line inside of
the nose. The destructive action of the cold
virus on the cells in the nose causes nose to
produce excess mucus.
 Other viruses cause influenza, chicken pox,
measles and rabies, and can lead to
development of AIDS (Acquired
 Immunodeficiency Syndrome). Aids is a
condition in which the body no longer has the
ability to fight infections)
 Some viruses are capable of spreading quickly
around the world ie COVID-19.

REPLICATION REPRODUCTION

Refers to the Is a characteristic of life in which living things produce

exact copying of offspring that are not exact copies but have some
something variation in their features
Refer to textbook page 43
Algae (Non-decomposer)
 They possess all characteristics of a plant, i.e. has cell wall, chloroplasts/
chlorophyll and they make their own food using sunlight.
 It is a microscopic plant which is made of one cell. (refer textbook page
48)
 They can grow together in huge colonies of single cells and make a green
surface on the sides of trees. They can be found in seas, rivers, lakes or
ponds.
 Blue-green algae live in seas, oceans and lakes. Also grow on wet rocks at
the sides of stream and rivers, rocky seashores and a lot in soil. (Refer
textbook page 49). Can see with naked eyes when occur in huge numbers

Additional information
 There are two types of algae
 Unicellular algae – tiny algaes that cant be seen with naked eyes (only
microscope). Example - phytoplankton
  Multicellular algae – large algaes. Example – seaweed, giant kelp algae
(can grow up to 50 m long).
 Other examples – Spirulina, chlorella and spirogyra.
Protozoan
 Some microscopic organism (made from one cell) have features that are
found in animals, i.e. have cell membrane and find food instead of making
their own.
 They eat other microorganism and some of them have surface covered
with microscopic hair (called cilia) which is used like oars to swim through
water in their habitats in soil and ponds.
 Example of protozoan – Amoeba, plasmodium, paramecium, euglena
 *Amoeba (decomposer) – It has a flexible cell membrane which it can
shape into projections to wrap around tiny parts of dead plants and
animals.*
Fungis
 Sometimes its surprise to describe fungi as microorganism. Why? Because
a large number of fungi, example mushrooms can easily be seen without a
microscope.
 But at one stage of their life, they cant be seen and behave like other
microogranisms. What stage is that? The spore stage, which occurs when
they reproduce. Fungal spores are carried by air and water currents.
 They can travel long distances, survive in hot, cold and dry conditions until
they find suitable conditions for the fungi to grow.

ECOSYSTEM
What is an ecology?
 It is the study of living things in their environment.
  Three words that always connected with ecology are habitat,
environment and ecosystem.

What is a Habitat?
 The habitat is the place where a plant or animal lives. A large number of
different living things can share the same habitat.
 For example, in Europe, the deer, woodpeckers, oak trees and bluebells
share the same habitat – called the woodland.
 All the plants and animals living in a habitat form a community of living
things.

What is in the community of living things in a pond habitat?

(State every living thing in the pond)

What is an environment?
 The environment is surrounding of living things that could affect its
survival.
 The things that affect plants and animals are called environmental factors.
There are non-living elements, which include, temperature, snow, air, the
amount of light, amount of water (rain) that affects living things in the
environment. These elements are called abiotic factors.
 There are also living elements in the environment, such as plants, animals
and decomposers that affects the living things there. These are called
biotic factors.

What is an ecosystem?
  An ecosystem is a community or unit where plants, animals and
decomposers interact in the same area. They consist of both living things
and non-living things.
 Ecosystems contain biotic or living, parts, as well as abiotic factors, or
nonliving parts
 The way these two parts of the ecosystem react together allows the
community to survive for a very long time, until something upsets the
balance between the two parts.
 The ecosystem only needs energy, almost always from the sunlight, to
keep it self-sustaining.

Living parts in an ecosystem

Organisms Populations Community ECOSYSTEM

Organism
An individual animal or plant
Population
A group of individuals of the same species living and interbreeding in the same
area.
Community
A group of various species living and interacting in the same area

Food chain
  In general, plants make own food from CO2 in the air and water in the
ground by using energy from the sunlight.
 Plants also need other chemicals. They take in mineral in the form of
water from soil, which is needed in all the life process of a plant.
 What happens when an animal eats a plant?
 When an animal eats a plant, it takes in the minerals from the plant’s
tissues and uses them for its own life processes (growth).
 Predators also take in the minerals from their prey and use the minerals
for their life processes too. As such, what happens?
 The minerals are passed up through a chain called food chain.

Please take note of the word “decay”

 A food chain shows the feeding relationships and energy flow between
producers and consumers in an ecosystem.
 In a food chain, the organism (the plant) that makes the food is called the
producer; and
 The organism (animals) that eats the food is called the consumers
  The arrows in the food chain shows the passage of energy and
minerals/nutrients flow in an ecosystem, i.e. the arrow always points
from the eaten to the eater.
So, a food chain is the model that helps us understand how mineral are related
to food chain. Although, food chain shows the strength of mineral being
recycled through the habitat but is has a limitation. It doesn’t show how
minerals leave the food chain.

 The word “decay” in the diagram is the process in which the dead bodies
of plants and animals breakdown and fall apart.
 The living things that help in this “decay” process are called decomposers
(mainly microorganism).

Some invertebrates, such as annelid worm and young stages of flies (maggots)
are decomposers.

What does a decomposer do?

They use the dead remains of plants and animals