MOLECULAR IDENTIFICATION OF BACTERIA PRESENT IN ANTHILL SOIL

ABSTRACT

Ants are social, mound-building creatures. During mound construction and food harvest, they cause disturbances to grassland ecosystems that modify the structure and functioning of the plant community. The research was carried out to isolate and identify bacteria present in anthill soil using culture based molecular techniques. Standard bacteriological methods were used to determine the total bacterial count of the anthill soil using pour plate methods after serial dilution. The bacterial isolates were characterized and identified using morphological biochemical methods and molecular techniques. The results from the enumeration of microbial population (bacteria) in the anthill soil (log10 cfu/g) from the institutional samples, revealed that the bacterial count recorded was higher in adjacent soil compared to that of ant hill soil with values (log10 cfu/g) 6.58±0.50 and 6.35±0.25 respectively were 5.04±1.37 and 4.51±1.53 respectively while the counts for the Residential samples showed that adjacent soil once again possess the highest microbial load compared to that of the ant hill soil with values (log10 cfu/g) 6.92±0.50 and 6.46±1.00 respectively. There was a significant difference (p<0.05) in the bacterial count for the adjacent and anthill soil samples. The cultural morphological and biochemical characteristics of bacteria from the anthill soil revealed that E. coli, Bacillus sp., Pseudomonas sp., Serratia sp., Enterobacter cloacae, Staphylococcus sp. and Salmonella were present . The molecular result which was done using PCR priming detected the spacer variations present. Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter cloacae and Serratia marcescens possesses a Genebank Accession numbers of MK371829.1, MN326502.1, MK371822.1 and MN3223455 respectively.