Course Code | MIBI 12014 |
Title |
Diversity of Bacteria, Virus and Fungi |
Pre-requisite | MIBI 11512 |
Co-requisite |
MIBI 12522 |
Learning outcomes:
At the end of the course unit student should be able to
- discuss the major differences and criteria used in taxonomic divisions,
- describe basic characteristics of some selected groups of bacteria and their economic importance,
- explain the classification of viruses and their structure,
- describe the eukaryotic microorganisms, their lifecycles and behavior.
Course content:
Diversity of Prokaryotic & Eukaryotic Microorganisms:
Introduction to taxonomy; Taxonomic ranks, Problems of bacterial taxonomy, major characteristics used in bacterial taxonomy. Systematic study of important groups of chemoorganotrophic bacteria: Enterobacteriaceae, Lactobacillaceae, Bacillaceae, Micrococcaceae and Pseudomonadaceae, Photosynthetic bacteria and Archaeobacteria.
Characteristics of algae, major divisions of algae. Characteristics of unicellular algae and a brief study of cyanobacteria.
Characteristics of fungi:
Nutrition and reproduction, Brief study of major divisions of fungi, slime molds and their industrial, agricultural and medical importance.
Viruses:
Structure of Viruses, and other acellular forms: Viroids, Prions. Detection, Identification and Classification of viruses. Lifecycles of the major groups of bacterial viruses, animal viruses, plant viruses and other virus-host associations.
Method of teaching and learning:
A combination of lectures and tutorials.
Assessment:
End of course examination.
Recommended reading:
- Atlas, R.M. (1996). Microbiology Fundamentals and applications. Wm. C. Brown Publishers
- Tortora, G.J., Funke, B.R., Case, C.L (1998) Microbiology. Benjamin Cummings Publishers, Addison Wesley Longman, Inc
- Dimmock, N. J. and Primrose, S. B. (1998). Introduction to Modern Virology. Oxford University Press