The purpose of this dissertation was to study to phylogenetic relationships among a group of uncharacterized bacterial strains isolated from topsoil and two deep aquifer sediments at a study site in South Carolina. Of particular interest were: (i) how these uncharacterized strains are related to established bacterial taxa, (ii) whether strains with similar physiological traits are closely related phylogenetically, and (iii) how closely topsoil and deep-aquifer bacteria at the same study site are related phylogenetically. / Aerobic, chemoheterotrophic bacteria were isolated (by plating) from topsoil and two deep aquifers (depths 91 m and 260 m) at the Savannah River Plant in Aiken, S.C. Twenty isolates (4 from topsoil, 4 from 91 m, and 12 from 260 m) were tested for their reactions to 21 physiological tests. The 16S ribosomal RNAs of these isolates were then partially sequenced with a variation of the dideoxy DNA-sequencing technique. The resulting sequences were aligned with those for Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis, after which the aligned data were analyzed with parsimony, distance matrix, and maximum likelihood algorithms. The phylogenetic trees produced by these analyses were subjected to further statistical analysis (bootstrap analysis). / Bacteria isolated from the same depth tended to group together, whereas the strains isolated from the topsoil appeared to be distinct from those isolated from either of the deep aquifers. Two groups of six and seven strains with very similar physiological traits appeared to be quite distantly related phylogenetically. Thus, the physiological tests underestimated the amount of diversity among the bacteria in the test group and often failed to provide useful information about phylogenetic relationships among these bacteria. / Additional 16S rRNA sequence data were obtained for 9 of the 20 isolates and analyzed as described above. The results of phylogenetic analysis were essentially the same as those obtained for the group of 20 isolates. An analysis of oligonucleotide signature sequences indicated that all nine strains are likely to be members of a phylum of bacteria that includes the purple photosynthetic bacteria and their relatives. However, it was not possible to assign these isolates to specific established taxa. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-12, Section: B, page: 5478. / Major Professor: David L. Balkwill. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_78135 |
| Contributors | Stim, Kathleen P., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 255 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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