Synonyms
Sulfur bacteria
Definition
Bacteria living of sulfur compounds.
Introduction
The term thiotrophic is derived from Greek and translates to sulfur nourishment, meaning that thiotrophic bacteria live on sulfide or other reduced sulfur compounds. Traditionally, these bacteria are often called sulfur bacteria because some of them can be recognized as sulfide oxidizers in the microscope, as they store elemental sulfur within the cells or excrete elemental sulfur into the medium. Microbiologists distinguish between colorless sulfur bacteria and green and purple sulfur bacteria , the latter two being phototrophs, which use sulfide as electron donator for anoxygenic photosynthesis (Robertson and Kuenen, 2006). The purple and green sulfur bacteria are generally not called thiotrophic because they gain energy by photosynthesis and are thus classified as phototrophic, even though sulfide is required for this process. Free-living, sulfide oxidizing bacteria are, out of tradition, still...
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Bibliography
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Schulz-Vogt, H.N. (2011). Thiotrophic Bacteria. In: Reitner, J., Thiel, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geobiology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_206
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_206
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