Morphological diversity of Bacillus subtilis

Bacillus subtilis is the most studied bacterium from genus Bacillus and this microorganism is widespread in nature. B. subtilis is often found in fresh and seawater, in the rhizosphere, in the soil (especially contaminated with feces and manure). The large variety of strains are available in collections of microorganisms, but strains isolated from the rhizosphere of various plants are particularly interesting for science and practical use. At the same time, the morphological criterion (the form and other features of the colonies) is the main one in the identification of B. subtilis at the first stages of the study and allows to refuse of extraneous strains before use more expensive methods and materials. The article presents the description of the morphological diversity of B. subtilis strains that are used in agriculture. Typical R-colonies are characteristic of bacteria B. subtilis, and we established 2 morphologically diverse forms of these colonies in the studied strains.