Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

how does bacteria react in different temperatures of water? what are the main factors that contribute to bacterial growth? how hot or cold does the enviroment that the bacteria live in have to be to kill them? what enviroment does bacteria usually thrive in?

How does bacteria react to hot water?

HOW DOES BACTERIA GROW IN DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES OF WATER!

I would assume that bacteria does not grow that well in warmer temperatures of water because the heat would kill off the bacteria. Here are some sites that might help you.

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/archi ... 17929.html
http://secure.sciencecompany.com/Bacter ... 4C659.aspx

Let me know if it helps. Perhaps you can tell me your procedure and we can work on it together.

Robby,

I have merged all your topics into a single topic so the experts don't get confused--please keep all your posts in this topic. Please also realize that this is a web-board and not a chat room; scientists from all around the world check the forum once a day, but since they are in different time zones it can take 24-48 hours to get a response. Please be patient with us!

Also, to help in answering your question, it depends on the bacteria! There are some bacteria that can tolerate living in hydrothermal vents and even in hot springs in Yellowstone Park; see this wikipedia article for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermophile .

Hi Robby,

As Melissa said, it depends on the bacteria. Some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it exactly the temperature your body is!

Most pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria like body temperature. Boiling will kill the majority of bacteria because their proteins fall apart at such a high temperature. Freezing, however, is something many bacteria can survive if their parts don't break.

Are you thinking of doing an experiment around this topic?

amber

Does/Can Bacteria grow in cold climates better than in room temperature climates, if so why. Also how does Bacteria depend on it's climate?

Hi,

It appears some bacteria do thrive in very cold, almost freezing temperatures, and die if they get much above room temperature. Here are articles about some of them:

http://www.physorg.com/news5426.html
http://www.babs.unsw.edu.au/research/eh ... oject.html


You might want to read some books on cold adapted bacteria - Here are excerpts from two:

http://books.google.com/books?id=dTPeqe ... t#PPA40,M1

http://books.google.com/books?id=eMFwIn ... t#PPR13,M1


Here is an article on how bacteria protect themselves at low temperatures:

http://www.iisc.ernet.in/academy/resona ... p59-63.pdf

http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=334

If you were a bacterium species that lived your whole life for thousands of generations in a very cold climate, you have only two options: die out or learn to like where you live. Bacteria that have learned to like cold temperatures are called psychrophillic. Other bacteria have learned to like almost boiling hot temperatures, and are called thermophillic.

You may be interested in this site on psychrophillic organisms:

http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/extreme/cold/

And in this review article on them:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... tid=413900

This is a very interesting area to investigate, as relatively little seems to be known about these organisms.

Have fun researching it!

Barrett Tomlinson