Lesson 3 of 12 · 5 min
Kingdom Monera: the bacteria
NCERT §2.1
One pinch of soil from the school garden goes under the club's microscope. The drop is swarming with tiny cells: dots, rods, commas and corkscrews.
The lesson in notes
In short
Bacteria are the only members of Kingdom Monera, and they are the most abundant micro-organisms.
They turn up nearly everywhere. A handful of soil holds hundreds of them, and they also survive where little else can, in hot springs, deserts, snow and the deep sea. Many are parasites living in or on other organisms.
By shape bacteria fall into four groups: spherical coccus (cocci), rod-shaped bacillus (bacilli), comma-shaped vibrium (vibrio) and spiral spirillum (spirilla).
Their structure is very simple, but their behaviour is complex: as a group bacteria show the widest metabolic diversity of any organisms.
Some are autotrophs that make their food from inorganic substrates, either by photosynthesis or by chemosynthesis.
The great majority of bacteria are heterotrophs: they get food from other living organisms or from dead organic matter.