Soil bacteria are essential to the survival of life in ecosystems. Acids and bases can affect the efficiency of soil bacteria. The bacteria was isolated from the soil, and added to the agar plates. Paper discs were put with different molarities of an acid and a base to measure the resistance of the bacteria to the acid/base. Our objective for this experiment was to see the effect that acids and bases on the growth of soil bacteria and how the bacteria resisted the acids/bases. Our null hypothesis (H0) is that the soil bacteria will show the same amount of resistance to both the acidic and basic discs . Our alternative hypothesis (H1) is that the soil bacteria will resist the basic solution more than the acidic solution.
Introduction.
Soil bacteria are essential to the survival of life in ecosystems.They are very useful in maintaining healthy soil and plants in an ecosystem. This is because without bacteria, plants and the soil wouldn't obtain the nutrients necessary to survive. This leads to the death of many organisms. A major role of soil bacteria in an ecosystem is to absorb nitrogen and change it into more usable forms for plants, such as nitrates. Nitrates are beneficial to plants because nitrate serves as an essential plant nutrient helping with tissue development and building immune systems, and nitrate helps plants develop and produce seeds. Most of the generic fertilizers have high concentration of nitrate. These are essential for plant growth and survival.
Acids and bases are common solutions that exist everywhere. Almost every liquid consists of acidic/basic properties(except for water). Acids are known to be proton[H+] donors and bases are known to be proton[H+] acceptors. Acids and bases are measured through the pH scale. Acids were studied by many different chemist branching from Antoine Laurent Lavoisier to Justus Freiherr von Liebig. Lavoisier proposed that a certain compound, element or essence in an acid determines its acidity.
