BIOL 3200 Final Exam 1 (Yohannes
Mehari - Auburn) Questions and All
Correct Answers 2025-2026 Updated.
Microbe - Answer living organism that requires a microscope to be seen
Groups of microbes - Answer bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea, protozoan
Criteria of microbes - Answer - range in size from millimeters to 0.2 micrometers
- some consist of single cell (exceptions, but majority)
- each contains, in its genome, capacity to reproduce its own kind (doesn't apply to viruses)
Exceptions to microbial criteria - Answer - not all microbes are microscopic
- not all microbes are unicellular; some can only survive in microbial communities
- viruses are dependent on another cell to reproduce
Deadliest viral disease - Answer Ebola
Florence Nightingale - Answer first person to recognize effect of microbes on warfare (more
soldiers died of microbial infections than of wounds in battle)
Robert Hooke - Answer built first compound microscope
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek - Answer first to observe single-celled microbes with his superior
lenses
Spontaneous generation - Answer the theory that living creatures could arise without parents
Francesco Redi - Answer attempted to disprove spontaneous generation by showing maggots
in decaying meat were offspring of flies (meat kept in sealed container)
Lazzaro Spallanzani - Answer tried to disprove spontaneous generation by showing that sealed
,- developed first vaccines based on attenuated strains
Germ theory of disease - Answer belief that many diseases are caused by microbes
Robert Koch - Answer founder of scientific method of microbiology; published link between
infection and microorganisms
Criteria to establish causative link between infectious agent and disease (Koch's Postulates) -
Answer - microbe is found in all cases of diseased but is absent from healthy individuals
- microbe is isolated from diseased host and grown in pure culture
- when microbe is introduced into healthy, susceptible host, same disease occurs
- same strain of microbe is obtained from newly diseased host
Exceptions to Koch's Postulates - Answer - disease doesn't always depend on microbes
(postulate 1)
- majority of microbes cannot grow in a plate (postulate 2)
- immune system can counteract microbial infection (postulates 1 and 2)
Lady Mary Montagu - Answer introduced smallpox inoculation to Europe
Edward Jenner - Answer developed vaccine for smallpox
Immunization - Answer the stimulation of an immune response by deliberate inoculation with
an attenuated pathogen
Aseptic - Answer microbe-free environment
Sergei Winogradsky - Answer - among first to study microbes in natural habitats
- discovered lithotrophs
- developed enrichment cultures (Winogradsky column)
Challenges early taxonomists faced when classifying microbes - Answer - resolution of light
microscope was too low
, Herbert Copeland - Answer divided Monera into two groups:
- eukaryotic protists (protozoa and algae) with nucleus
- prokaryotic bacteria with no true nucleus
Robert Whittaker - Answer added fungi as fifth kingdom of eukaryotic microbes (fungi cannot
synthesize own food)
Whittaker five-kingdom classification of life - Answer protists, monerans, fungi, plants, animals
Lynn Margulis - Answer altered five-kingdom system by proposing mitochondria and
chloroplasts evolved by endosymbiosis from prokaryotic cells engulfed by pre-eukaryotes
(endosymbiosis theory)
Controversies of endosymbiosis theory - Answer - opposed Darwinian evolution (organisms
evolve over time)
- implied species evolved from more than one ancestry
Evidences of symbiosis - Answer - mitochondrial and chloroplast DNA >97% similar to bacterial
DNA
- mitochondria and chloroplast have own ribosomes (exactly same as bacterial ribosomes)
- size and morphology of mitochondria and chloroplast
Carl Woese - Answer - studied prokaryotes in Yellowstone that live in hot springs and produce
methane
- analysis of DNA that codes for rRNA revealed these prokaryotes were distinct form of life
(archaea)
Three domains of life - Answer Bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya
Arguments that support classification of Archaea as third domain of life - Answer - some
archaea can survive in conditions bacteria cannot
- cell wall lacks peptidoglycan found in bacterial cell membranes
- differences in ribosomal DNA
Mehari - Auburn) Questions and All
Correct Answers 2025-2026 Updated.
Microbe - Answer living organism that requires a microscope to be seen
Groups of microbes - Answer bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea, protozoan
Criteria of microbes - Answer - range in size from millimeters to 0.2 micrometers
- some consist of single cell (exceptions, but majority)
- each contains, in its genome, capacity to reproduce its own kind (doesn't apply to viruses)
Exceptions to microbial criteria - Answer - not all microbes are microscopic
- not all microbes are unicellular; some can only survive in microbial communities
- viruses are dependent on another cell to reproduce
Deadliest viral disease - Answer Ebola
Florence Nightingale - Answer first person to recognize effect of microbes on warfare (more
soldiers died of microbial infections than of wounds in battle)
Robert Hooke - Answer built first compound microscope
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek - Answer first to observe single-celled microbes with his superior
lenses
Spontaneous generation - Answer the theory that living creatures could arise without parents
Francesco Redi - Answer attempted to disprove spontaneous generation by showing maggots
in decaying meat were offspring of flies (meat kept in sealed container)
Lazzaro Spallanzani - Answer tried to disprove spontaneous generation by showing that sealed
,- developed first vaccines based on attenuated strains
Germ theory of disease - Answer belief that many diseases are caused by microbes
Robert Koch - Answer founder of scientific method of microbiology; published link between
infection and microorganisms
Criteria to establish causative link between infectious agent and disease (Koch's Postulates) -
Answer - microbe is found in all cases of diseased but is absent from healthy individuals
- microbe is isolated from diseased host and grown in pure culture
- when microbe is introduced into healthy, susceptible host, same disease occurs
- same strain of microbe is obtained from newly diseased host
Exceptions to Koch's Postulates - Answer - disease doesn't always depend on microbes
(postulate 1)
- majority of microbes cannot grow in a plate (postulate 2)
- immune system can counteract microbial infection (postulates 1 and 2)
Lady Mary Montagu - Answer introduced smallpox inoculation to Europe
Edward Jenner - Answer developed vaccine for smallpox
Immunization - Answer the stimulation of an immune response by deliberate inoculation with
an attenuated pathogen
Aseptic - Answer microbe-free environment
Sergei Winogradsky - Answer - among first to study microbes in natural habitats
- discovered lithotrophs
- developed enrichment cultures (Winogradsky column)
Challenges early taxonomists faced when classifying microbes - Answer - resolution of light
microscope was too low
, Herbert Copeland - Answer divided Monera into two groups:
- eukaryotic protists (protozoa and algae) with nucleus
- prokaryotic bacteria with no true nucleus
Robert Whittaker - Answer added fungi as fifth kingdom of eukaryotic microbes (fungi cannot
synthesize own food)
Whittaker five-kingdom classification of life - Answer protists, monerans, fungi, plants, animals
Lynn Margulis - Answer altered five-kingdom system by proposing mitochondria and
chloroplasts evolved by endosymbiosis from prokaryotic cells engulfed by pre-eukaryotes
(endosymbiosis theory)
Controversies of endosymbiosis theory - Answer - opposed Darwinian evolution (organisms
evolve over time)
- implied species evolved from more than one ancestry
Evidences of symbiosis - Answer - mitochondrial and chloroplast DNA >97% similar to bacterial
DNA
- mitochondria and chloroplast have own ribosomes (exactly same as bacterial ribosomes)
- size and morphology of mitochondria and chloroplast
Carl Woese - Answer - studied prokaryotes in Yellowstone that live in hot springs and produce
methane
- analysis of DNA that codes for rRNA revealed these prokaryotes were distinct form of life
(archaea)
Three domains of life - Answer Bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya
Arguments that support classification of Archaea as third domain of life - Answer - some
archaea can survive in conditions bacteria cannot
- cell wall lacks peptidoglycan found in bacterial cell membranes
- differences in ribosomal DNA
