You don’t have to love bacteria, but at the very least we should appreciate their role in nature and understand that without bacteria, we would not survive.

Most of us think of the pathogenic (disease causing) type when bacteria comes to mind, for example Streptococcus spp or Staphylococcus spp. There are approximately 2000 species of bacteria and they are literally everywhere (a fact that many find a bit confronting or we would not have the issue of an obsessively clean society).

The ecosystem, both on land and in the water, depends heavily upon the activity of bacteria. The cycling of nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur is completed by their ceaseless labor¹.

1. Generate Oxygen in the Atmosphere - Almost all of the production of oxygen by bacteria on earth today occurs in the oceans by the cyanobacteria or "blue-green algae.² Cyanobacteria convert light energy into chemical energy using the process of photosynthesis, a by-product of which is oxygen.³

2. Recycle nutrients stored in organic matter to an inorganic form - Decomposition (also called ‘mineralisation’) releases the mineral nutrients (e.g., N, P, K) bound up in dead organic matter in an inorganic form that is available for primary producers to use. Without this recycling of inorganic nutrients, primary productivity on the globe would stop.²

3. Fix nitrogen from the Atmosphere into a Useable Form - The only organisms capable of removing N₂ gas from the atmosphere and "fixing" it into a useable nitrogen form (NH₃) are bacteria.² Rhizobacteria convert, or fix, nitrogen in the air into a form which leguminous plants can use, enabling them to grow.³

4. Give Plant Roots Access to Nutrients in the Soil. ²

5. Some mammals, such as ruminants (e.g. sheep & cattle) use bacteria to boost the nutritional value of their diet. Ruminants are strict vegetarians and have evolved a specialised intestinal compartment containing bacteria capable of breaking down otherwise indigestible plant materials such as cellulose.³

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