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Dynamics of Microbial Growth in the Decelerating and Stationary Phase of Batch Culture

  • Chapter
Starvation in Bacteria

Abstract

One of the most striking features of microbes is their ability to rapidly grow in the presence of abundant nutrients in both the natural and laboratory environments. It is therefore not surprising that a large amount of microbiological research has focused on this phenomenon. Although this book is concerned with starvation in bacteria, it is important that those events which occur during the antithesis of starvation, i.e., during bacterial growth prior to the stationary phase, are also examined. It is well known that the composition and physiology of a bacterial cell are a function of its growth rate and environment (Herbert, 1961; Harder and Dijkhuizen, 1983; Bremer and Dennis, 1987). Consequently, the response to starvation will depend on the conditions under which the cell was growing prior to the onset of exhaustion of a particular essential nutrient. Whereas other chapters in this book have emphasized the important genetic and physiological changes that occur after the onset of starvation and compare these events with those found during unlimited growth, this chapter will specifically deal with the physiological changes that take place during the transition phase from unlimited exponential growth to the early starvation phase.

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  1. Swiss Federal Institute for Water Resources and Water Pollution Control (EAWAG), CH-8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    C. Anthony Mason & Thomas Egli

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  1. C. Anthony Mason
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  1. University of Göteborg, Göteborg, Sweden

    Staffan Kjelleberg

  2. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Staffan Kjelleberg

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Mason, C.A., Egli, T. (1993). Dynamics of Microbial Growth in the Decelerating and Stationary Phase of Batch Culture. In: Kjelleberg, S. (eds) Starvation in Bacteria. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2439-1_4

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