Biogeomicro term of the day:
Fastidious organism "An organism that has complex nutritional requirements"
ref: http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Fastidious_organism
Here is an open access paper using this term:
Degnan AJ, Sonzogni WC & Standridge JH (2003) Development of a Plating Medium for Selection of
Helicobacter pylori from Water Samples. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 69(5): 2914-2918
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/69/5/2914
Though I don't study human pathogens, I do work with organisms that are difficult to isolate from their more persistent "weedy" companions. The following quote from this paper seemed to sum up the challenge particularly well:
developing an acceptable selective medium for H. pylori in water presented the classical microbiological problem of finding a medium that is nutritionally rich enough to resuscitate and grow a fastidious organism while managing to inhibit the growth of all the other organisms found in water samples.
This sentence really sums up the focus of my quest for this week!
This is an image of a gorgeous sulfurous spring at one of my field sites, note the purple sulfur (unconfirmed, possibly purple non-sulfur) bacteria in the center. The image is about 10 cm widthwise.
