Environmental Microbiology I

Basics of microbiology and biochemistry. The biochemical and biophysical principles of biochemical reactions, energetics, and mechanisms of energy conservation. Diversity of microbial catabolism, flow of organic matter in nature: the carbon cycle, and biogeochemical cycles. Bacterial physiology, phylogeny, and the ecology of microbes in soil and marine sediments, bacterial adhesion, and biofilm formation. Microbes in the degradation of pollutants. Prerequisites: CHEM 33,CHEM 121 (formerly CHEM 35), and CHEMENG 181, or equivalents.