Question: what you hapen if there was no microbes

Danielle Nader answered on 11 Jan 2022:

Great question Connor!!

All aspects of life would definitely be impacted. Microbes like bacteria and fungi are natural decomposers, meaning they break down human and animal waste then recycle it back to the environment. This provides nutrients for plants and animals. Without microbes, many species would die or go extinct.

Microbes also act as environmental de-polluters, by cleaning up external pollutants and after digestion, they excrete beneficial nutrients to the soil. This acts as natural fertilizers. Without microbes, human diet would suffer immensely!

Weirdly enough, microbes digest dead bodies too! So I’d imagine lots of dead bodies would be lying around…!

From a human side, we need bacteria and fungi to survive- they live on our skin and in our gut, this is called the microflora. They help breakdown food particles we cannot, and release nutrients to our body. Many experiments have shown that mice born without a microflora cannot survive.

Viruses are important too. Some viruses can infect bacteria, these are called bacteriophages. They are crucial because they help regulate and prevent the overgrowth of some bacterial populations. We see this importance in the ocean. Viruses help reduce bacterial growth so they don’t take up all the nutrients. This allows oceanic plants to get enough nutrients to keep photosynthesizing and produce oxygen for the planet.