THE SUITABILITY OF THE BIOLOG AUTOMATED MICROBIAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING THE TAXONOMICAL COMPOSITION OF TERRESTRIAL BACTERIAL COMMUNITIES

The Biolog system was evaluated with respect to analysing the diversit y of bacterial terrestrial communities. Identification tests with auth entic strains of typical soil bacteria belonging to Gram negative bact eria and the Bacillus-Clostridium-Streptococcus branch of Gram positiv e bacteria provided excellent results, whereas only 80% of the strains belonging to the Actinomycetes branch could be identified correctly. The identification rates for isolates from two terrestrial ecosystems were unsatisfactory (70% in Gram negative bacteria, 35% in Gram positi ve). The low number of isolates which can be reliably identified consi derably limits the usefulness of the Biolog system for analysing the c omposition of autochthonous bacterial soil communities. The identifica tion results must be confirmed by additional investigations.