Exam 27: Bacteria and Archaea

Plantlike photosynthesis that releases O₂ occurs in

Use the following information and graph to answer the question. The figure below depicts changes to the amount of DNA present in a recipient cell that is engaged in conjugation with an Hfr cell. Hfr cell DNA begins entering the recipient cell at Time A. Assume that reciprocal crossing over occurs (in other words, a fragment of the recipient's chromosome is exchanged for a homologous fragment from the Hfr cell's DNA). What process is occurring at Time C that is decreasing the DNA content?

Which of the following traits do archaeans and bacteria share?

Use the following information and figure to answer the question. The sea slug Pteraeolidia ianthina (P. ianthina) can harbor living dinoflagellates (photosynthetic protists) in its skin. These endosymbiotic dinoflagellates reproduce quickly enough to maintain their populations. Low populations of the dinoflagellates do not affect the sea slugs very much, but high populations (> 5 x 10⁵ cells/mg of sea slug protein) can promote sea slug survival. Percent of sea slug respiratory carbon demand provided by indwelling dinoflagellates. Which of the following would be a potential disadvantage to the sea slugs of housing the dinoflagellates?

Use the following information and figure to answer the question. The sea slug Pteraeolidia ianthina (P. ianthina) can harbor living dinoflagellates (photosynthetic protists) in its skin. These endosymbiotic dinoflagellates reproduce quickly enough to maintain their populations. Low populations of the dinoflagellates do not affect the sea slugs very much, but high populations (> 5 x 10⁵ cells/mg of sea slug protein) can promote sea slug survival. Percent of sea slug respiratory carbon demand provided by indwelling dinoflagellates. If we assume that carbon is the sole nutrient needed by sea slugs to drive their cellular respiration, then based on the graph, during which season(s) is it least necessary for P. ianthina to act as a chemoheterotroph?

The following question refers to the figure. In this eight-year experiment, 12 populations of E. coli, each begun from a single cell, were grown in low-glucose conditions for 20,000 generations. Each culture was introduced to fresh growth medium every 24 hours. Occasionally, samples were removed from the populations, and their fitness in low-glucose conditions was tested against that of members sampled from the ancestral (common ancestor) E. coli population. Which term best describes what has occurred among the experimental populations of cells over this eight-year period?

Bacteria perform each of the following ecological roles. Which role typically does not involve symbiosis?

Use the information in the following paragraph to answer the question. A hypothetical bacterium swims among human intestinal contents until it finds a suitable location on the intestinal lining. It adheres to the intestinal lining using a feature that also protects it from phagocytes, bacteriophages, and dehydration. Fecal matter from a human in whose intestine this bacterium lives can spread the bacterium, even after being mixed with water and boiled. The bacterium is not susceptible to the penicillin family of antibiotics. It contains no plasmids and relatively little peptidoglycan. Adherence to the intestinal lining by this bacterium is due to its possession of ________.

A fish that has been salt-cured subsequently develops a reddish color. You suspect that the fish has been contaminated by the extreme halophile Halobacterium. Which of these features of cells removed from the surface of the fish, if confirmed, would support your suspicion?

In a hypothetical situation, a bacterium lives on the surface of a leaf, where it obtains nutrition from the leaf's nonliving, waxy covering while inhibiting the growth of other microbes that are plant pathogens. If this bacterium gains access to the inside of a leaf, however, it causes a fatal disease in the plant. Once the plant dies, the bacterium and its offspring decompose the plant. What is the correct sequence of ecological roles played by the bacterium in the situation described here?

Termites eat wood, but many do not produce enzymes themselves that will digest the cellulose in the wood. Instead, some termites house a complex community of protozoa, bacteria, and archaea that could help digest the cellulose. Imagine an experiment that fed termites either wood only or wood and antibiotics, and then measured the amount of energy extracted from the wood. If both groups gained equal amounts of energy, which of the conclusions is the most logical?

Which of the following statements is not true?

If a bacterium regenerates from an endospore that did not possess any of the plasmids that were contained in its original parent cell, the regenerated bacterium will probably also lack ________.

In prokaryotes, new mutations accumulate quickly in populations, while in eukaryotes, new mutations accumulate much more slowly. The primary reasons for this are ________.

What is the goal of bioremediation?

Which of the following is least associated with the others?

Use the following information to answer the question. For several decades now, amphibian species worldwide have been in decline. A significant proportion of the decline seems to be due to the spread of the chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Chytrid sporangia reside within the epidermal cells of infected animals, animals that consequently show areas of sloughed skin. They can also be lethargic, which is expressed through failure to hide and failure to flee. The infection cycle typically takes four to five days, at the end of which zoospores are released from sporangia into the environment. In some amphibian species, mortality rates approach 100%; other species seem able to survive the infection. If infection primarily involves the outermost layers of adult amphibian skin, and if the chytrids use the skin as their sole source of nutrition, then which term best applies to the chytrids?

Chloramphenicol is an antibiotic that targets prokaryotic (70S) ribosomes, but not eukaryotic (80S) ribosomes. Which of these questions stems from this observation, plus an understanding of eukaryotic origins?

A hypothetical bacterium swims among human intestinal contents until it finds a suitable location on the intestinal lining. It adheres to the intestinal lining using a feature that also protects it from phagocytes, bacteriophages, and dehydration. Fecal matter from a human in whose intestine this bacterium lives can spread the bacterium, even after being mixed with water and boiled. The bacterium is not susceptible to the penicillin family of antibiotics. It contains no plasmids and relatively little peptidoglycan. The cell also lacks F factors and F plasmids. Which of the following statements about the bacteria is most probably accurate?

Compared to eukaryotes, prokaryotes are ________.