Home > Subjects > Biology > Level 1 > 1.3 Micro-organisms > Subject content
- Subject: Biology
- AS: AS90927
- Level: 1
- Credits: 4
- External
Biology 1.3 Demonstrate understanding of biological ideas relating to micro-organisms
Subject content
Make sure you have up-to-date course notes on the following topics. If you haven’t got them, see your teacher.
- Drawings showing the structure of bacteria and fungi.
- Notes and diagrams on how to culture bacteria, fungi, and viruses, and why viruses can't be cultured in the same way.
- How bacteria and fungi carry out the following life-processes:
- nutrition,
- growth, fungi growth
- respiration,
- excretion.
- How bacteria, fungi, and viruses reproduce.
- Why viruses cannot be considered living (only reproduce using host cells and do not grow, feed, produce energy or excrete).
- Environmental factors that affect the life-processes of micro-organisms include:
- temperature,
- oxygen availability,
- presence of suitable nutrients,
- moisture,
- chemicals (including pH, toxins, antibiotics, disinfectants),
- host species,
- competition – related to antibiotic action and resistance.
- The questions on effects of environmental factors on the life processes of micro-organisms could use the following contexts:
- nutrient cycling and role in ecosystems,
- food production and preservation,
- sewage treatment,
- food poisoning,
- disease in plants,
- microbial attack on everyday materials (helpful and harmful),
- antibiotics, and resistance to antibiotics,
- genetic mutation in epidemiology.
- You must be familiar with the following terms:
- inoculate,
- extracellular digestion,
- enzyme,
- parasite,
- pathogen,
- toxin,
- decomposer,
- aerobic,
- anaerobic,
- hyphae,
- binary fission,
- spores,
- sporangium,
- antibiotic,
- vaccine.
