Question

State two economically important uses of:
(a) Heterotrophic bacteria
(b) Archaebacteria

Answer 1

Hint: The bacteria which depend on other organisms to derive their energy are considered as heterotrophic bacteria, and the Archaebacteria is the type of bacteria, where these bacteria lack the nucleus and this is considered as prokaryotes.

Complete answer:
Heterotrophic bacteria importance:
- Lactobacillus is mainly used for making curd from the milk.
- Rhizobium is the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, generally present in the legume plants, where these plants fix the atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites which can be used by plants for their growth and development.
- In the area of food processing microorganisms are useful, mainly they ferment the food and make it tasty.
- In the area of beverages also microorganisms are very useful, especially in the case of wine, the old fermented wine has more demand than fresh wine.
- Some of the microorganisms act as composers, where they feed on plants and animals’ organic matter and their dead tissues and help bring back the nutrients to the earth, this is the reason why the decomposers are apex predators and they are placed in the top of the food pyramid.
- Some of the microorganisms are useful for making medicines like antibiotics, for example penicillin is prepared from penicillium.
- Intestinal Microorganisms are very useful because they help full for synthesis of some essential nutrients, where vitamin b12 is synthesised by some intestinal bacteria.

Archaebacteria economic importance:
- This are anaerobes, where they produce some metabolic products such as methane, where these products are the reservoirs of natural gas, example is methanococcus.
- Some of the halophilic archaea carry some processes which are economically very important such as biodegradation, bioremediation and environmental processes.
- Some Thermophilic archaea have enzymes which have an important role in the application of methane production, metal leaching and immobilized enzyme systems.

Note: Apart from the economical and industrial uses, archaebacteria also has some biological importance, and this causes more benefits than harm, and this decreases the PH of the skin, which In turn decreases the disease probability and makes us protective.