Plant material has accumulated in the Poutwater Pond peat bog for thousands of years. The area has acid conditions and a thick (5 meter) accumulation of slowly decomposing plant material. The nature of the microbes living at different depths in this environment is not well known. Bacteria were isolated from a core collected at the peat bog and brought in to the laboratory. Samples from different depths were cultured on trypticase soy agar. A streak plate method was used to isolate some colonies of bacteria. The BIOLOG™ technique used for microbial community analysis showed that the assemblage of microorganisms remains similar at different depths of the peat bog. Gram staining showed that both Gram negative and Gram positive rods were cultured from different depths of the peat bog. The BIOLOG™ identification system was used to identify four of the bacteria as Pseudomonas chlororaphis, P. fluorescens, Bacillus mycoides and Alcaligenes denitrificans. Some bacteria have been tested for antibiotic susceptibility. Bacteria demonstrating antibiotic resistance occur at different depths of the peat bog. The results of this study are useful in understanding the organisms that live under these conditions.
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1 March 2009
Natural Antibiotic Resistance of Bacteria Isolated from a Peat Bog at Poutwater Pond, Holden, Massachusetts
E.F. Fynan,
M.R. Hunt,
P. Dowling,
J. Auguste,
A.P. Smyth,
P.M. Bradley
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