The microbial profiles and activities of microbes in the digesta from chickens on diets containing Bogong or Canobolas with or without inclusion of microbial enzymes were investigated on the 384 day-old male Ross 308 broiler chickens. There was a reduction in population of C. perfringens (P < 0.01) of the ileum as a result of interaction between cultivar and xylanase. On the other hand, in the ...

Understanding the mechanism of ET (electron transfer) through electroactive microbial biofilms is a challenge in the field of fundamental and applied life sciences. To date, electrochemical techniques such as CV (cyclic voltammetry) have been applied successfully to study the ET process in intact microbial biofilms on electrodes, providing important insight into their redox properties. However,...

So close, but yet so far: G. sulfurreducens c-type cytochromes become reduced as biofilms grow on electrodes beyond a few cell thicknesses, even if the electrode is poised well above the potential required to oxidize all cytochromes. Cytochrome redox state also lags behind rapid potential changes during voltammetry, but only when the films are multiple cell layers thick, as would be expected if...

Knowledge of paleo-redox conditions in the Earth's history provides a window into events that shaped the evolution of life on our planet. The role of microbial activity in paleo-redox processes remains unexplored due to the inability to discriminate biotic from abiotic redox transformations in the rock record. The ability to deconvolute these two processes would provide a means to identify envi...

Microbial reduction of ferric iron is partly dependent on Fe hydroxide particle size: nanosized Fe hydroxides greatly exceed the bioavailability of their counterparts larger than 1 μm. Citrate as a low molecular weight organic acid can likewise stabilize colloidal suspensions against aggregation by electrostatic repulsion but also increase Fe bioavailability by enhancing Fe hydroxide solubility...

The effects of microbial iron reduction and oxidation on the immobilization and mobilization of copper were investigated in a high concentration of sulfate with synthesized Fe(III) minerals and red earth soils rich in amorphous Fe (hydr)oxides. Batch microcosm experiments showed that red earth soil inoculated with subsurface sediments had a faster Fe(III) bioreduction rate than pure amorphous F...

When sewage sludge is applied to arable land, linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) is released into the environment. In soils, LAS has been shown to impede microbial processes, such as bacterial iron reduction. The aim of the present study was to quantify LAS adsorption and desorption to agricultural soils and iron oxides and relate this to the inhibition of microbial iron reduction. Two agricul...

Geochemical and microbial evidence points to anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) likely coupled with bacterial sulfate reduction in the hypersaline groundwater of the Dead Sea (DS) alluvial aquifer. Groundwater was sampled from nine boreholes drilled along the Arugot alluvial fan next to the DS. The groundwater samples were highly saline (up to 6300 mm chlorine), anoxic, and contained methane....

use of electrokinetic technique for remediation of contaminated soils has recently been highly attended to, but there are still concerns regarding the effect of this process on soil microbial activity. in this study, changes in concentration of heavy metals extractable through 4n nitric acid, microbial biomass-c, and microbial coefficient, following electrokinetic remediation of a native soil c...

Hydrothermal vents are thermally and geochemically dynamic habitats, and the organisms therein are subject to steep gradients in temperature and chemistry. To date, the influence of these environmental dynamics on microbial sulfate reduction has not been well constrained. Here, via multivariate experiments, we evaluate the effects of key environmental variables (temperature, pH, H2S, [Formula: ...