Top Ten Microbes of 2009

Drum Roll Please….

So, my post-holiday top ten microbes of the year.

At #11) Pediococcus.  A genus within the lactobacteria family, responsible for sauerkraut!  Present in spoiled beer and wine, including a barley wine we made two summers ago.  Does your funny-tasting wine look oily or ropy?  Possibly this guy.

#10) Brettanomyces.  This little yeast can live in a used oak barrel, or can be brought in on a fruit fly.  It is responsible for making a wine smell like leather, your old baseball mitt, or a band aid.  Thanks Brett!  Its saving grace, in small quantites, it can add complexity and intrigue.  In a lambic farmhouse ale from Belgium, there are up to 86 microbe species present, two predominant ones are Brettanomyces bruxellensis and B. lambicus.

Coming in at #9) Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter.  One couldn’t do it without the other, give em a hand.  Nitrosomonas converts the ammonium in the soil or a compost pile to nitrite, while nitrobacter takes the nitrite to nitrate, the plant usable form of nitrogen.  Gotta love these guys.  Your doing great work.

At #8) Rhizobium and Bradyrhizobium.  Thse guys (many species, each particular to a certain species of legume) are bacteria that live in the roots of legumes (peas, beans, clover…).  They colonize the plant’s root cell and turn nitrogen gas in the atmosphere into ammonium.  The plant stores the ammonium in little nodules in the roots, that can later be released into the soil for other plants (like grapevines).

#7) Aspergillus oryzae.  Responsible for sake and miso soup.  Better at fermenting rice and soy than other yeasts.  Other aspergilliums make poisonous aflotoxins, but not A. Oryzae.  Miso may be linked to reducing the effects of radiation posioning as was shown in Chernobyl, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki survivors.

#6) Aureobasidium pullulans, responsible for turning the breakdown-resistant lignins in an oak stave into vanillin. Holy shit.  Three years of seasoning the staves maximizes this process.  Read more here http://www.demptos.fr/en_v2/images/J_SCI_TECH_TONNELLERIE_064_A.PDF.  The staves are then formed into a barrel, and then we put our wine into it.  Wondering why your red wine smells like vanilla, butterscotch, or oak?  Thank this guy.

#5) Oenococcus oeni.  This bacteria is responsible for the malolactic fermentation in winemaking.  This process gives acidic wines a creamier mouthfeel, however at the expense of some of the aromatic compounds.  Usually prevented in white wines (by filtration or lots of sulfites).

#4) Penicillium roqueforti.  Umm..What, you don’t like blue cheese?  Fine, go make your own antibiotics.

The top three microbes of 2009,

at #3) Glomeromycota.  A whole phylum of the Fungi kingdom, also known as the mycorrhizae.  These are cool.  Two main types. The endomycorrhiza, or the arbuscular type, actually live inside the plant roots. They live in the intracellular spaces of a root, and grow outwards.  They improve micronutrient intake of the plant by reaching outward from the root, increasing root surface area, and dissolving the surrounding soil.  The other type, the ectomycorrhizae are similar and cover the outside of the plant root. They also fix carbon and increase soil structure by the secretion of a chemical called glomulin (reducing global warming).  

Mycorrhizae coming out of a root

These incredible fungi have even been observed connecting a legume (soil nitrogen fixer) to a non-legume.  Thus, a clover can send excess nitrogen (made by the rhizobium) to a ryegrass, and the clover can receive excess phosphorus from the mycorhizae attaching the ryegrass.  Four species in symbiosis.  Sweet.

Coming in at #2)Lactobacillus acidophilus.  Thank you for cheese, yogurt, and the indigenous flora of the human vagina.  Yes, it is present in all three. In the vagina, a healthy population of Lactobacillus helps prevent infestation of Candida by supporting a balanced ecosystem.   You make life better acidophilus, thank you.

And the 2009, top microbe of the year, drum roll,

#1)Sacchromyces cerevisiae. Thank you for making beer, wine, mead, champagne, and sourdough bread. I love you.

Saccharomyces under the EM