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:

1. Atlas, R.M. (1996). Microbiology Fundamentals and applications. Wm. C. Brown Publishers
2. Tortora, G.J., Funke, B.R., Case, C.L (1998) Microbiology. Benjamin Cummings Publishers, Addison Wesley Longman, Inc
3. Dimmock, N. J.  and Primrose, S. B. (1998). Introduction to Modern Virology. Oxford University Press