Difference Between Microbial Mats And Biofilms

Here is a somewhat startling characteristic of bacteria in a biofilm as observed by biofilm scientists and engineers.

Difference between microbial mats and biofilms. This review will highlight some of the insights into the biological structure of biofilms and microbial mats and how the structure is affected by the physical and chemical environment species composition and species interactions. 2013 and hence may also explain the difference between hot spring mats and those thriving in saline environments. Microbial mats are multilayered structures of microorganisms mainly bacteria archaea fungi and sometimes protozoans. The upper layers usually contain different screening pigments including the sheath pigment scytonemin providing protection to subsurface layers so the condition inside the mat could be more favorable.

They are a type of biofilm that is large enough to see with the naked eye and robust enough to survive moderate physical stresses. Laminated mats composed of motile filamentous photosynthetic bacteria and nonmotile unicellular blue green algae occur in a large number of yellowstone hot springs at temperatures between 55. Biofilms may form on living or non living surfaces and can be prevalent in natural industrial and hospital settings 2 3 the microbial cells growing in a biofilm are physiologically distinct. The cells within the biofilm produce the eps components which are typically a polymeric conglomeration of extracellular.

The chapter begins with a comparison of microbial mats and biofilms and ends with some suggestions for future. Microbial mats can be considered a specialized type of biofilm. The same kind of bacteria are different when they are in a biofilm than when they are isolated in planktonic form that is floating as single cells in water. A biofilm comprises any syntrophic consortium of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other and often also to a surface.

They grow at interfaces between different types of material mostly on moist surfaces but some are found in dry environments. The microbial community in various hot spring mats forms a cluster separated from saline mats fig. In response to extreme and variable conditions consortia of several species could develop firm layered structures microbial mats or biofilms. They are an extreme example of an interfacial aquatic habitat in which many microbial groups are laterally tightly compressed into a thin mat of biological activity.

These colonies of bacteria form on surfaces at many types of interface for example between water and the sediment or rock at the bottom between air and rock or sediment between soil and bed. Let s think about this for a moment. The eps matrix of biofilms including microbial mats may contain high amounts of extracellular dna vlassov et al.