Benefits of Bacteria For Humans

1. Bacteria have an important role in the manufacture of various foods such as vinegar and some types of cheese.
2. Various organic chemicals are also produced from bacterial activities such as acetone used in many chemical industries, butanol that serves as a solvent of varnish and vitamins.
3. Bacteria decompose dead plants, animal carcasses, and other organic waste matter. They will break down proteins, carbohydrates and complex organic matter contained in organic substances and convert them into carbon dioxide, ammonia, and other simple inorganic compounds. In this way, bacteria cleanse our environment from the remnants of organic compounds.
4. This simple inorganic substance will then be returned to the soil and air so that the green plants can use it to make their own food.
5. Some foods will be stored by green plants in fruit, stems, leaves, and roots as food reserves. These food stocks will then be used by humans as food and energy sources.
6. In the absence of bacteria, the supply of inorganic compounds required by plants to make their own food will be exhausted. You can imagine what will happen next. Plants will die because they can not make their own food. And finally, humans and animals will be extinct.
7. Some bacteria also play a role in binding to free nitrogen in the air and put it in the soil. This material is an ammonification, nitrification, and nitrogen-binding bacteria. Nitrogen is an essential ingredient for maintaining soil fertility. The fertile soil will make the plant grow well.
8. Ammonified bacteria convert organic compounds from parts of dead plants and animals into ammonia.
9. Nitrifying bacteria are of two types: a. nitrite bacteria b. nitrate bacteria. Nitrite bacteria serves to convert ammonia to nitrite. While the nitric bacteria tasked to convert nitrite to nitrate. This nitrate compound serves as a carrier of nitrogen and is absorbed by green plants.
10. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria convert nitrogen gas in the air into compounds that can be absorbed by plants. These bacteria belong to nodular bacteria that are symbiotic in the roots of leguminous plants. These bacteria enter into the soil through the fibers of the roots and grow to form nodules.
    
11. The symbiosis between nitrogen-fixing bacteria and plant roots is a symbiotic mutualism. Both organisms are mutually beneficial. The roots of pods provide carbohydrates and other foods for bacteria. In return, the bacteria provide nitrogen compounds for the roots used by plants to flourish.
12. This nitrogen-fixing bacterium can only bind nitrogen if it is symbiotic with plant-legged roots.
13. In the digestive system of some animals, bacteria play an important role. Farm animals such as cattle and goats eat grasses containing cellulose. However, these animals have no enzymes to digest cellulose into a simpler substance. They need the help of bacteria.
14. An anaerobic bacteria living in the digestive tract of animals takes care to digest cellulose and produce a simpler substance. This simple substance is then absorbed by the intestinal wall and used to produce energy.
15. Most of these intestinal bacteria will come out with animal feces.
16. In addition, some bacteria that live in the animal's body can produce important vitamins such as vitamin K and B12.
17. In the human digestive tract, bacteria work to improve the digestive process and supplement the vitamins.
    
18. Bacteria in the human gut are rope-shaped bacteria called Escherichia coli. These bacteria play a role in the decay of food scraps. Human feces is estimated to contain about 40% of these bacteria.

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