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INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
Citation:
Hurst*, C J. INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY. Chapter 1, C.J. Hurst, et. al. (ed.), Manual of Environmental Microbiology, Second Edition. American Society for Microbiology, Washington, DC, , 1-5, (2001).
Impact/Purpose:
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Description:
Environmental microbiology is the study of those microorganisms which exist in natural or artificial environments. The origin of scientific research in this field rests in the observations of Antony van Leewenhoeck that were published in 1677(4). Van Leewenhoeck used a microscope of his own creation to discover what he termed "animalcula", or the "little animals" which lived and replicated in rain water, well water, sea water, and water from snow melt. During the intervening centuries, the expansion of our knowledge regarding environmental microorganisms has been based upon increasingly detailed observations and experimentation, in which we have been aided by advancements in microscopy and the development of biochemical and mathematical tools. Yet, many of the individual topics which we have since come to better recognize and characterize in envioronmental microbiology were initially described in van Leewenhoeck' s publication.
