Astrogeobiology 1300-WAGBP-OG

The practical course consists of independent work or group work with chemical reagents and cultures of bacteria and fungi. Students learn basic petrographic microscope techniques used to characterise the minerals that constitute meteorites. Students examine samples collected from cold and hot deserts (including microscopic analyses, isolation, and cultivation of microorganisms) and analyse cultured cyanobacteria, other bacteria, and fungi under an epifluorescence microscope. Students perform ecophysiological experiments with extremophilic cyanobacteria under variable conditions to understand the importance of various ecophysiological traits in colonising inhospitable environments.
They also learn to extract and isolate DNA from sediments, rocks, and cultured microorganisms, and to analyse marker genes responsible for specific processes (for example, nitrogen fixation and photosynthesis-related genes) using PCR.

Course coordinators

Iwona Jasser
Mirosław Słowakiewicz

Type of course

general courses

Prerequisites (description)

Practicals cannot be taken as a separate course without a lecture. It is assumed that the student has knowledge of the natural sciences and knows basic biology and geology terminology after the first year of university education.

Learning outcomes

The student will learn about microbialites and their importance; petrography of meteorites; culturing of bacteria (with special attention paid to cyanobacteria, extremotolerant and extremophiles) and fungi; DNA extraction and isolation from sediments and rocks (subaerial and endolithic) as well as from cultured bacterial strains; identifying regions of genomic DNA that encode genes responsible for important biochemical processes in cells.

Assessment criteria

The examination requirements cover the scope of material presented at the practical course. The exam is in writing and includes a test and a descriptive part.
Additional presentation of selected topics based on experiments and literature.

Practical placement

not applicable

Additional information

Information on level of this course, year of study and semester when the course unit is delivered, types and amount of class hours - can be found in course structure diagrams of apropriate study programmes. This course is related to the following study programmes: