What percent of microbes present in an environmental sample can typically be cultivated on Petri plates?

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BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The question asks: What percent of microbes present in an environmental sample can typically be cultivated on Petri plates?

Option considered: 'Less than 1%'.

To reason this through, recall a fundamental concept in microbial ecology: the great majority of environmental microbes are not readily cultivable with standard laboratory techniques. Cultivation bias means that the conditions provided by typical Petri dishes (nutrients, temperature, oxygen, pH, etc.) favor only a small subset of organisms, often those that can grow quickly under those specific conditions.

A key implication of this concept is that many microbes exist in environmental samples in a viable but non-culturable state or require very particular nutrients, symbiotic partners, or growth factors that are not replicated in routine culture media. As a result, the fraction of total microbes that can be grown on standard Petri plates is frequently cited as being well below 1%, with estimates commonly ranging from fractions of a percent to a small percentage, depending on the sample type and conditions.

Why this choice could be considered correct:
- It aligns with the well-documented cultivation bottleneck in microbiology, often summarized as “only a tiny fraction is cultivable under standard lab conditions.”
- The phrase 'Less than 1%' captures the idea of a very small cultivable fraction, which is a reasonable generalization for many environmental samples.

Why other choices (if present) might be incorrect:
- If an option claimed a higher percentage (e.g., 1–10% or more), such an assertion would conflict with the widely taught concept of cultivation bias and the historical observation that a minority of environmental microbes are cultivable with routine methods.
- If an option suggested that nearly all microbes can be cultured, it would contradict extensive literature demonstrating the vast uncultivability problem and the need for advanced or culture-independent techniques.

In summary, the statement that less than 1% of microbes from environmental samples can be cultured on standard Petri plates is consistent with the established understanding of microbial cultivation limits in ecology and microbiology.

SYSB_2024_90350_202509 Aylward module quiz

What percent of microbes present in an environmental sample can typically be cultivated on Petri plates?

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