TYPES OF MICROORGANISMS

1. Bacteria
 Typically unicellular life forms that are considerably smaller than protozoa, algae
or fungi.
  Bacteria can be motile utilizing flagella as a whip like appendages.
  Many bacteria use organic carbon compounds for energy and growth.
 Bacteria are the oldest, structurally simplest, and the most abundant forms of life
on earth.
  They are also the only organisms with prokaryotic cellular organization.
 Represented in the oldest rocks from which fossils have been obtained, 3.5 to 3.8
billion years old, bacteria were abundant for over 2 billion years before eukaryotes
 appeared in the world.
 Early photosynthetic bacteria (cyanobacteria) altered the earth’s atmosphere with
 the production of oxygen which lead to extreme bacterial and eukaryotic diversity.
 Bacteria play a vital role both in productivity and in cycling the substances
essential to all other life-forms.
 Bacteria are the only organisms capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen.

2. Fungi
  Microscopic fungi include yeasts and molds while larger fungi include the
 “mushrooms”.
 The microscopic fungi are not photosynthetic and utilize organic materials for
nutrients and energy.
3. Algae
 Photosynthetic organisms that are both unicellular and multicellular. These
 organisms lack the structural differentiation of simple plants.
 The algae use light energy for growth and carbon dioxide as a carbon source,
although some algae also use organic carbon sources.

4. Protozoans
  Simple organisms whose name indicates they are in the “first animals”.
 These organisms are typically motile, unicellular, and vary widely in size,
shape and complexity.
 These organisms are commonly found in surface water, sewage and mud.
 They feed on organic matter, algae, bacteria and other protozoans.

5. Nematodes
 Invertebrate roundworms that inhabit marine, freshwater, and terrestrial
environments.
 They comprise the phylum Nematoda which includes parasites of plants and of
animals, including humans, as well as species that feed on bacteria, fungi,
algae, and on other nematodes.
 Four out of every five multicellular animals on the planet are nematodes

6. Viruses
 Viruses are too small to be seen with a light microscope, and are not living entity
since they require a living host in order to replicate. No cellular structure and
therefore not included in Kingdom or Domain classification systems.
