Introducing.... Microbial Ecology

Assalamualaikum.. 

Ever since I decided to take microbial ecology course, I was curious about what we are going to learn and the activities we are going to do. Especially when I found out that the lecturer who will teach this subject is Dr. Wan Zuhainis because she has lots of ideas for activities that will be conducted to attract students in this subject, next assist the students for better understand about this subject.

Week 1  (26 Februari 2015)

The first task given was to look for an article or journal from scientific journal publisher or website related to the topic on principle of microbial ecology and share with the other class members by uploading it in Edmodo. Each of us is need to comment on one or more article that may interest us.

This is the article that I found about principle of microbial ecology.

This article is interesting as it tell us about how the principle of microbial ecology being search through experiment and lot of research by microbiologists.

On the first day of class, we were briefed on the activities and SCL that will be carried out during this semester which include PoBL (life without microbes), infographic or newspaper, thinglink, flipped classroom and reflective journal. For life without microbe, flipped classroom, and infographics are held in groups while thinglink and reflective journal individually. Each group has six members and for the topic of life without microbes, my group (Group 2) has chosen the title about "Ruminant Free-microbes".

Interesting topic choosen by the others group.

Oh ya then, we were asked to discuss with the group members on the article that we found interesting and relevant to the topic of principle of microbial ecology, which has been shared in Edmodo. So, we have chosen the article titled "Principles of Microbial Ecology and Their Application to Xerostomia - Associated Opportunistic Infections of the Oral Cavity". This article is very interesting ! It tell us about the myriad bacterial interactions between innocuous and potentially pathogenic species that prevent the growth of sufficient number of bacteria to initiate the xerostomia. By using the principle of microbial ecology, it can prevent the particular disease prevalent in xerostomia patient. On top of that, this article is easy to understand.

Our view about the chosen article.

Week 2 (5 March 2015)

On the second week, which is actually our first lecture on the first topic which is Principle of Microbial Ecology. From this topic, I learn about the definition of ecology which is the study of relationships among organism and the environments, and between other organism. I also can list the hierarchy in ecology ( species > population > community > ecosystem > biosphere ). The main factor of distribution of organism is nutrient. From this lecture I got to know that microorganisms have two strategists which are r strategist and k strategist to remain survive. k strategist is the most stable because organism can adapt to the new environment and reproduce slower but r strategist growth rapidly and high reproduction.

Other than that, I also learn about two types of succession which are autogenic and allogenic. Autogenic is microorganism that alter the habitat to adapt in the environment and produce new population, for example biofilm. Allogenic is microorganism that change in environment.

In this topic, I also learn about the contribution factors leading to homeostasis. Homeostasis is the dynamic balance between process, materials and organisms in the ecosystem and biosphere. Homeostasis is measured by photosynthesis (P) and respiration (R). 
At the end of this lecture, I learnt about environmental change and ecological crisis.

This is the summary of principle of microbial ecology =)