Shower Curtain
Description of Niche
Location of Niche
Organisms such as bacteria and fungus tend to thrive on the surface of shower curtains that face the water source.
Physical Conditions
A shower curtain will have a wide range of physical conditions depending on its location and usage. Typically the temperature and pH will be highly variable- changing with every use of the shower as well as its location on the globe- while pressure remains relatively constant at near atmospheric pressure and moisture/humidity, although not constant, are relatively high. There is a wide range of organic and non-organic material that organisms must make use of or protect themselves from such as dead skin cells, soil, other organisms introduced, detergents, cleaning solutions, and possibly blood, urine, and feces. Thus, we see that the organisms that live in this niche have a unique metabolism that allow them to break down many materials and have several defense mechanisms to shield themselves from products that threaten them.
Influence by Adjacent Communities (if any)
Is your niche close to another niche or influenced by another community of organisms?
Conditions under which the environment changes
Do any of the physical conditions change? Are there chemicals, other organisms, nutrients, etc. that might change the community of your niche.
Microbes That Live Here
Nocardia
Afipia felis
Moraxella osloensis (Kelley et. al 2004)
Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
Escherichia coli (Barrett 2003)
Non-microbes Present
Aspergillus niger (Barrett 2003)
Phoma violacea (Green 1972)
Do the microbes that are present interact with each other?
Describe any negative (competition) or positive (symbiosis) behavior
Do the microbes change their environment?
Do they alter pH, attach to surfaces, secrete anything, etc. etc.
Do the microbes carry out any metabolism that affects their environment?
Do they ferment sugars to produce acid, break down large molecules, fix nitrogen, etc. etc.
Current Research
Enter summaries of the most recent research. You may find it more appropriate to include this as a subsection under several of your other sections rather than separately here at the end. You should include at least FOUR topics of research and summarize each in terms of the question being asked, the results so far, and the topics for future study. (more will be expected from larger groups than from smaller groups)
References
Barrett Tony D. International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, Vol. 10, Iss. 6, 01 Jun 2003, pp 281
Green W. F. Precipitins against a fungus, Phoma violacea, isolated from a mouldy shower curtain in sera from patients with suspected allergic interstitial pneumonitis. Med J Aust. 1972 Apr 1;1(14):696-8.
Scott T. Kelley, Ulrike Theisen, Largus T. Angenent, Allison St. Amand, and Norman R. Pace. "Molecular Analysis of Shower Curtain Biofilm Microbes" 25 March, 2004. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 2004, Vol. 70, No. 7, p. 4187-4192.
