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Contents 1 Bacteria as dominant lifeform on Earth by mass 2 recent changes 2.1 new history section 3 Thanks 4 Excellent article, but... 5 disambiguation 6 error? 7 I'm a spelling freak. 8 Archaea 9 Plural? 10 "Origin and early evolution" How is this neutral?!

Bacteria as dominant lifeform on Earth by mass

I would very much like to see discussion of the hypothesis that the total bacterial biomass on Earth may exceed that of all the rest of life combined.

Stephen Jay Gould, 1996:

"Not only does the Earth contain more bacterial organisms than all others combined (scarcely surprising, given their minimal size and mass); not only do bacteria live in more places and work in a greater variety of metabolic ways; not only did bacteria alone constitute the first half of life's history, with no slackening in diversity thereafter; but also, and most surprisingly, total bacterial biomass (even at such minimal weight per cell) may exceed all the rest of life combined...." [1] (I have added emphasis)

Stephen Jay Gould, "Planet of the Bacteria," Washington Post Horizon, 1996, 119 (344): H1.
This essay was adapted from Full House, New York: Harmony Books, 1996, pp. 175-192.

Also "Bacterial Biovolume and Biomass Estimations" by Gunnar Bratbak Appl Environ Microbiol. 1985 June; 49(6): 1488–1493. [2]

"Both bacterial biomass and bacterial production in aquatic ecosystems may thus have been seriously underestimated."

Thanks. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Good point. There are some numbers in Whitman W, Coleman D, Wiebe W (1998). "Prokaryotes: the unseen majority". Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95 (12): 6578–83. PMID 9618454.  and this says prokaryotes in total are about 50%, so I added "much of" rather than choosing a precise figure. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

recent changes

I have to decided to remove this early hypothesizing that such things as microrganisms existed. First of all neither of these early claims resemble in any way that microorganisms existed. Worlds like foul earthly bodies and contagious entities does not in any way mean someone was talking about microbes. I mean were these foul contagious entities made of what? solids, liquids, a combination. Basically by saying these early people were speculating on the existence of microbes is fallacious since one is just amplying a modern interpretation to ancient words. Essentialy one is just assuming, ohh contagious entities, well they must be talking about microbes, but thats just retrospect since we now know such things exist. This early section is best kept in the germ theory page. Lastl, but not least, associating microbes with disease is foolish since its not true, not all microbes cause disease. Lastly this article is about a specific microbe, bacteria so it makes even less sense to put these early speculative ideas, since its not clear if even these ideas were about microoganisms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomasz Prochownik (talk • contribs) 08:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

While slight rephrasing may be in order, the information you deleted is useful for context and should remain. Please make proposals on talk pages first rather than blanking paragraphs, remember to fill in an edit summary, and remember to sign your posts. .. dave souza, talk 08:25, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

lets put it this way, bacteria has a specific charactersitics, so it makes no sense to be writting about wild early speculation on microorganisms, if thats even what was being discussed. a prefect example to illustrate what am saying is this. Would it make sense to, on the history of the electron article, to write about early indian and greek philosophy about atoms. No it wouldnt becuase the electron is something specific, just as bacteria, and this article is specifically about bacteria sooo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomasz Prochownik (talk • contribs) 08:56, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with establishing the context. You're removing well sourced information about the background and early ideas, and that can be construed as vandalism. Please stop, and sign your posts. .... dave souza, talk 09:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

new history section

i think this new revised section on the history is okay with everyone, give me a shout on any comments or suggestions.

Thanks

What a fantastic article. Many thanks to all those who contributed, excellent work. FQ1513 (talk) 22:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent article, but...

First of all, this might be the best wikipedia article i've ever read...

The only little thingie I encountered is that the text says "Bacteria were first observed by Anton van Leeuwenhoek", whilst the picture says Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. That's all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.37.139.66 (talk) 14:57, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, corrected. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

how do bacteria make sick. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.59.181.65 (talk) 08:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

See virulence. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

disambiguation

The following links need disambig:
butyrate
chlamydia
fimbria
respiratory infection
rhizosphere
stationary phase
Randomblue (talk) 21:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Done, except for respiratory infection, where either of the two links on the disambig page are relevant. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Good job, that was quite fast!Randomblue (talk) 21:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is one of my favorite articles! :) Tim Vickers (talk) 21:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

error?

Hi. The first image has x15k magnification, as indicated on the image itself. But the image note says 25000x. Why the difference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.132.226.87 (talk) 15:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that is a letter X, rather than a magnification. It is not a fifteen-times magnification image. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I disagree. The x15k indicates clearly that the magnification on the scanning electron microscope was 15,000. The misleading and, in fact, inherently incorrect part is the legend, which states that the magnification is 25,000. Indicating magnification that way is appropriate only in a book. It should be obvious that the size of the reproduction varies on different computer screens. Only the scale bar (and, for technical purposes, the magnification factor on the microscope) is meaningful. I would strongly advocate removing the misleading component of the legend. MicroProf (talk) 01:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The image size is fixed, since the page specifies a size for this image. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

That's not entirely true, for two reasons. First, the image is clickable, which leads to the fact that it's available in 3 sizes: the small size as it appears in the article, the medium size when you click on it for a preview and the original size when you click on the preview to open the full-resolution picture. We probably need to assume that the magnification factor refers to the latter - full res - image. However, as MicroProf points out, stating magnification factors doesn't make sense in the first place. If I change the resolution of my monitor from 1600x1200 to 800x600, the real dimensions (by measuring with a ruler placed on my monitor) of the picture increase with a factor two. So, what resolution and monitor size (17"? 19"? 22" wide-screen?) do I need to use for the magnification factor to be applicable? As MicroProf states, only a scale bar would work, as it scales with the image, no matter what size it is and no matter what monitor you view it on. Stating a magnification factor is useless. And it seems the image does contain a scalebar (2 micrometer scale bar in 10 portions of 0.2 micrometer). Therefore, it would make sense to replace that statement about the magnification factor with a statement like "the width of the image is 8 micrometer". I'd change it myself, but the article is semi-protected, so it needs to be changed by a logged-in user. 130.89.81.182 (talk) 14:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's a good idea. I've done that. Thank you. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:29, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Just one small thing: the image is 8 micron in width, not diameter. The diameter (actually: "diagonal", as diameter only applies to circular shapes) of the image is about 10 - 10.5 micron. Don't know which one is nicer to use as a indicator for size. 82.74.127.167 (talk) 16:58, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm a spelling freak.

Okay, So I seem to notice a few problems in the article but since I'M just registered as of today I can't edit to the article so I'D like to point out that the word yogurt is spelled wrong. If this is a different spelling and I don't know of it please inform me. The word in the article is spelled yoghurt, is this correct? Toiletvodka (talk) 02:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That's one of several alternative spellings. See yoghurt. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:03, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Archaea

As an FYI, the article on the Archaea is up for FA. See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archaea. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Plural?

I still don't get why bacterium redirects to bacteria and not the other way around. According to the naming conventions, article subjects are always in singular, except for a few obvious exceptions, such as The Beatles, etc. I would prefer to switch the redirect. What do you people think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.89.81.182 (talk) 07:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

This article is about Bacteria, the kingdom, not bacteria, the plural noun. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

If it's about bacteria, the kingdom, why isn't this reflected in the first sentence of the article, which is generally used to give a single-sentence definition of the article subject? The opening sentence of the article clearly states that it is about "bacteria - the microorganisms", not "bacteria - the taxonomic kingdom". Since the article subject is "bacteria - the organisms", there is no reason to diverge from the singular/plural naming conventions of Wikipedia. The article should therefore be "Bacterium - a unicellular microorganism, belonging to the taxonomic kingdom of Bacteria". If you'd really want the article subject to remain "bacteria", the first sentence should be something similar to what has been done with the Archaea article. The article-opening would have to be something like "Bacteria are a group of unicellular microorganisms".130.89.81.182 (talk) 13:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

"Origin and early evolution" How is this neutral?!

Origin and early evolution

   Further information: Timeline of evolution

The ancestors of modern bacteria were single-celled microorganisms that were the first forms of life to develop on earth, about 4 billion years ago. For about 3 billion years, all organisms were microscopic, and bacteria and archaea were the dominant forms of life.[22][23] Although bacterial fossils exist, such as stromatolites, their lack of distinctive morphology prevents them from being used to examine the past history of bacterial evolution, or to date the time of origin of a particular bacterial species. However, gene sequences can be used to reconstruct the bacterial phylogeny, and these studies indicate that bacteria diverged first from the archaeal/eukaryotic lineage.[24] The most recent common ancestor of bacteria and archaea was probably a hyperthermophile that lived about 2.5 billion–3.2 billion years ago.[25][26]

Bacteria were also involved in the second great evolutionary divergence, that of the archaea and eukaryotes. Here, eukaryotes resulted from ancient bacteria entering into endosymbiotic associations with the ancestors of eukaryotic cells, which were themselves possibly related to the Archaea.[27][28] This involved the engulfment by proto-eukaryotic cells of alpha-proteobacterial symbionts to form either mitochondria or hydrogenosomes, which are still being found in all known Eukarya (sometimes in highly reduced form, e.g. in ancient "amitochondrial" protozoa). Later on, an independent second engulfment by some mitochondria-containing eukaryotes of cyanobacterial-like organisms led to the formation of chloroplasts in algae and plants. There are even some algal groups known that clearly originated from subsequent events of endosymbiosis by heterotrophic eukaryotic hosts engulfing a eukaryotic algae that developed into "second-generation" plastids.[29][30]

The way I see it, this looks like it was written by a pro-evolutionist....How is that neutral? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.74.230.117 (talk) 01:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:Evolution/FAQ Tim Vickers (talk) 01:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Uh...again! How is that neutral?!

66.74.230.117 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 01:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

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