How Do Bacteria Help Keep Ecosystems Healthy?
- Bacteria help maintain your internal ecosystem's balance and good health.yogurt with cherries image by Elke Dennis from Fotolia.com
Grab a container of yogurt out of your refrigerator or off the shelf at your favorite supermarket. Read the label or watch any yogurt commercial on television these days, and you will see or hear the word "probiotic." This word, along with the associated two-part scientific names you read, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus (L. acidophilus), L. bulgaricus, and L. casei immunitas, as well as Streptococcus thermaphilus (yes, "Strep"--S. thermaphilus) indicate bacterial species which have been reported to help maintain immunity, good gastrointestinal and digestive health and bowel/colon regularity. - Normal flora (bacteria) in our colons and on our skin help to protect us from invading forms.virus 8 image by chrisharvey from Fotolia.com
Even the dreaded Escherichia coli (E. coli), which exists in the intestines of practically every animal that has intestines, needs to be maintained in a normal healthy balance. Each of us has our own normal healthy personal strain of E. coli bacteria, which we share by close living with family members. E. coli bacteria are important in the synthesis of Vitamin K, which is necessary for the normal healthy clotting of our blood and prevents us from bleeding to death due to minor cuts and injuries. - When our bacterial concentrations return to normal and when our bodies adjust to newly introduced strains of bacteria, our normal balance and good health resume.scales image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
When our array of intestinal bacteria becomes unbalanced, such as when a new and strange strain of bacteria is introduced by such means as kissing strangers, touching dirty hands and objects or eating dinner somewhere new, we can get sick, and we sometimes experience things like food poisoning and/or diarrhea. Antibiotic medications (and inadvertent environmental antibiotics) can also disrupt the healthy balance of our normal intestinal flora by reducing critical populations.
When our bacterial concentrations return to normal and when our bodies adjust to newly introduced strains of bacteria, our normal balance and good health resume. Similarly, a lack of balance in our normal skin bacteria can lead to skin infections such as acne. - Sexually transmitted bacterial diseases such as gonorrhea and syphilis also disrupt our normal health. Prevention is the best medicine.kissing couple image by Mat Hayward from Fotolia.com
Sexually transmitted bacterial diseases such as gonorrhea and syphilis also disrupt our normal health. Preventing such bacterial strains from entering our bodies by using condoms and "safe sex" practices helps us to maintain the overall health of our internal ecosystems. - Our molecules get recycled in other living things and in the environment. Thus we can and will, in a sense, live on forever--all thanks to bacteria.rainbow image by Wolfgang Zintl from Fotolia.com
Now that we have explored how bacteria can affect the health of our unique internal ecosystems, we can extrapolate these same concepts to every ecosystem on the planet Earth.
Employing the same principles of balance and equilibrium, we can imagine how bacteria in ecosystems can either maintain good "health" or lead to "illness" in the form of environmental distress or possibly the loss of ecosystems and the ultimate extinction of species.
Nitrogen-fixing (attaching) bacteria live symbiotically on the roots of many legumes, peas and beans and plants related to them. Without these very specialized bacteria in the nodules on the roots of legumes, plants would not be able to take free nitrogen (N2) gas from the atmosphere and synthesize it into biomolecules such as amino acids and proteins.
Without these plant proteins and their constituent amino acids, animals would not be able to exist either. The nitrogen fixed (attached) by bacteria works its way up the food chain through primary producers (plants) and primary consumers (herbivores such as cattle) to secondary consumers (carnivores, such as predatory animals, and omnivores, such as humans).
In the oceans at depths so great that neither sunlight nor oxygen can penetrate, there exist ecosystems whose entire biological economy is based upon the element sulfur. Near deep-ocean volcanic vents, there are species known as purple sulfur bacteria that synthesize basic biomolecules in the presence of sulfur rather than oxygen. Some scientists suggest that these most primitive of ecosystems may exist in deep oceans on other planets and may even be responsible for the evolution of life on this planet as well.
Finally, no discussion about the value of bacteria to the health of ecosystems would be complete without a discussion about the bacteria of decomposition--the decomposers.
Every living thing gives off waste products and eventually dies. Carcasses of animals, feces and fallen forests would be piled many meters deep over the surface of the Earth were it not for the bacteria which help return and recycle all of the nutrients and biomolecules from living things to the next generations that come along to replace them.
Whether we are religious or spiritual or not, this is one way that we can return "from ashes to ashes and dust to dust," and as our molecules get recycled in other living things and in the environment we can and will, in a sense, live on forever--all thanks to bacteria.
