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SYNOPTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE PHYLUM DELTAPROTEOBACTERIA

SYNOPTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE PHYLUM DELTAPROTEOBACTERIA

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PHYLUM DELTAPROTEOBACTERIA LINKS

Description of Phylum

Hierarchical Classification

The following description comes mainly from Margulis and Schwartz (1998), Barnes (1984), Brock et al. (1994), and Tudge (2000).
  • I. SYNONYMS: δ-proteobacteria, sulfate-reducing bacteria, bdellovibrios, and the gliding bacteria.
  • II. PHYLUM CHARACTERISTICS:
    • A. Structure
      • Cell Form: Variable; rods (text with tooltip) A rod is an elongate cell form such that it has distinct ends (called poles). , cocci (text with tooltip) A coccus (cocci, pl.) is a spherical cell form. , spirals (text with tooltip) A spiral is a cell form that is a cork-screw shaped rod. or irregularly lobed.
      • Cell Wall: Gram- (text with tooltip) A Gram - cell loses the blue-black crystal-violet color following destaining with alcohol during the Gram Stain procedure. Then, it takes on the color of the counterstain, typically iodine. .
      • Motility: Non-motile or motile (text with tooltip) Motile comes from the Latin, motus, a participle of the verb movere, which means to move. Although the Latin word means general movement, the Biological term means a cell or colony of cells that move by means of flagella. , the myxobacteria move by gliding over surfaces.
    • B. Physiology
      • O2 Tolerance: Strice anaerobes or aerobes (text with tooltip) Aerobes is derived from Greek terms aero (air) and bios (life). Aerobes (n) are those bacteria that require free oxygen for metabolism. . No facultatively anaerobic taxa.
      • Substrates: They metabolize simple to complex organic compounds as heterotrophs.
      • Products: Terminal electron acceptors include Oxygen (for the aerobes) to sulfur, sulfate and small organics. Thus, the anoxic taxa typically reduce sulfate to a variety of sulfur compounds. Almost all metabolize organic sources to carbon dioxide.
    • C. Other: Very diverse group of bacteria.
    • D. Ecology: Free-living in soils and aquatic sediments.
LITERATURE CITED

Black, J. G. 2002. Microbiology, Principles and Explorations. 5th ed. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. New York.

Brock, T. D., M.T. Madigan, J.M. Martinko, and J. Parker. 1994. Biology of Microorganisms. 7th ed. Prentice Hall. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Emerson, D., J. A. Rentz, T. G. Lilburn, R. E. Davis, H. Aldrich, C. Chan, and C. L. Moyer. 2007. A novel lineage of Proteobacteria involved in formation of marine Fe-oxidizing microbial mat communities. PLoS ONE. 2007 (8): e667. http://www.plosone.org

Gao, B. and R. S. Gupta. 2007. Phylogenetic analysis of proteins that are distinctive of Archaea and its main subgroups and the origin of methanogenesis. BMC Genomics. 8:86. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/86.

Garrity, G. M., M. Winters, and D. Searles. 2001. Bergey’s manual of systematic bacteriology. 2nd ed. Springer-Verlag. New York.

Garrity, G. M., J. A. Bell, and T. G. Lilburn. 2003. Taxonomic Outline of the Prokaryotes. Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology. 2nd edition. Release 4.0. Springer-Verlag. New York. pp. 1-397.

Margulis, L. and K. Schwartz. 1988. Five kingdoms, an illustrated guide to the phyla of life on earth. 2nd Edition. W. H. Freeman and Co. New York.

Margulis, L. and K. Schwartz. 1998. Five kingdoms, an illustrated guide to the phyla of life on earth. 3rd Edition. W. H. Freeman and Co. New York.

Stackebrandt, E., R. G. E. Murray, and H. G. Trüper. 1988. Proteobacteria classis nov., a name for the phylogenetic taxon that includes the “Purple Bacteria and Their Relatives”. International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology. 38(3): 321-325.

Tudge, C. 2000. The Variety of Life, A Survey and a Celebration of all the Creatures That Have Ever Lived. Oxford University Press. New York.

Williams, K. P., B. W. Sobral, and A. W. Dickerman. 2007. A robust species tree for the Alphaproteobacteria. Journal of Bacteriology. 189(13): 4578-4586.

Woese, C. R. and G. E. Fox. 1977. Phylogenetic structure of the prokaryotic domain: the primary kingdoms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 74:5088-5090.

Woese, C. R., O. Kandler, and M. L. Wheelis. 1990. Towards a natural system of organisms: Proposal for the domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 87: 4576-4579.
By Jack R. Holt. Last revised: 02/18/2013
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