Green sulfur bacteria

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The green sulfur bacteria (Chlorobiaceae) are a family of phototrophic bacteria. No other bacterial families are known to be closely related to them, and they are accordingly placed in their own phylum (Chlorobi). The phylum is most closely related to Bacteroidetes. Scientific classification or biological classification refers to how biologists group and categorize extinct and living species of organisms. ... Phototrophs or photoautotrophs are photosynthetic algae, fungi, bacteria and cyanobacteria which build up carbon dioxide and water into organic cell materials using energy from sunlight. ... Phyla/Divisions Actinobacteria Aquificae Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi Chlamydiae/Verrucomicrobia Chloroflexi Chrysiogenetes Cyanobacteria Deferribacteres Deinococcus-Thermus Dictyoglomi Fibrobacteres/Acidobacteria Firmicutes Fusobacteria Gemmatimonadetes Nitrospirae Omnibacteria Planctomycetes Proteobacteria Spirochaetes Thermodesulfobacteria Thermomicrobia Thermotogae Bacteria (singular, bacterium) are a major group of living organisms. ... Phylum (plural: phyla) is a taxon used in the classification of animals. ... Classes & orders Class Bacteroides    Bacteroidales Class Flavobacteria    Flavobacteriales Class Sphingobacteria    Sphingobacteriales The phylum Bacteroidetes is composed of three large groups of bacteria. ...

Green sulfur bacteria are generally nonmotile (one species has a flagellum), and come in spheres, rods, and spirals. Their environment must be oxygen-free, and they need light to grow. They engage in photosynthesis, using bacteriochlorophylls c, d, and e in vesicles called chlorosomes attached to the membrane. They use sulfide ions as electron donor, and in the process the sulfide gets oxidized, producing globules of elemental sulfur outside the cell, which may then be further oxidized. (By contrast, the photosynthesis in plants uses water as electron donor and produces oxygen.) A flagellum (plural, flagella) is a whip-like organelle that many unicellular organisms, and some multicellular ones, use to move about. ... Leaf. ... Bacteriochlorophylls are photosynthetic pigments that occur in various bacteria. ... In chemistry, a sulfide (sulphide in British and Canadian English) is a chemical compound or combination of sulfur with an oxidation number of -2, with another chemical element or a radical thereof. ... The most fundamental reactions in chemistry are the redox processes. ... General Name, Symbol, Number sulfur, S, 16 Chemical series nonmetals Group, Period, Block 16, 3, p Appearance lemon yellow Atomic mass 32. ...

A species of green sulfur bacteria has been found living near a black smoker off the coast of Mexico at a depth of 2,500 meters beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. At this depth, the bacteria, designated GSB1, lives off the dim glow of the thermal vent since no sunlight can penetrate to that depth. A black smoker in the Atlantic Ocean Black smokers are a type of hydrothermal vent found on the ocean floor. ...

References

• Beatty JT, Overmann J, Lince MT, Manske AK, Lang AS, Blankenship RE, Van Dover CL, Martinson TA, Plumley FG. (2005). "An obligately photosynthetic bacterial anaerobe from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102 (26): 9306-10. PMID 15967984

External link

• "The Family Chlorobiaceae". The Prokaryotes. URL accessed on July 5, 2005.