Microbiology help!!!?

Question

Given a soil sample describe two methods you can use to check for the presence of acidophilic bacteria. Which off the two methods would you prefer. Explain why.

Answer 1

You can detect acidophilic bacteria in two ways, generally.

(1) you can look for a specific type of bacterium using immunobinding or PCR tests

or

(2) you can culture the soil in an acid medium and see what grows

Specific testing is faster. You can get results within 6 hours depending on the set up for the tests. However, it will only test for organisms you are looking for. It is a bit more expensive to do it this way also.

Culture is slower. You may get results in a day or two (with particularly slow growing organisms it may take weeks or months). It is more general - any of the acidophilic bacteria in the soil that like your medium will grow on it. You then need to examine the cultures to determine what bacteria it is so a second step is needed here to indentify, but if you just wanted to know if there was some sort of acidophilic bacteria you could tell this way.

I hope this answer helps. Please contact me (with a bit more information) if you were actually after a different two methods or a different compare and contrast.