The number of species of bacteria may vary

(25% weighting)

The number of species of bacteria may vary in an individual’s life. Sometime drastic variations in the number of micro-organisms may lead to disease. A patient has been complaining of abdominal pain and has provided a stool sample for analysis. Various species of bacteria and fungi have been identified, some of which could potentially be causing the problem and therefore need to be enumerated. A pure culture of a fungus has been resolved. Use the image of a section of a Neubauer counting chamber (image 5) to analyse the titre of one of the fungi found. Note that a 10–1 dilution has been used for the image provided. 300 words