Morphological Characteristics of Methanotroph Bacteria Isolated from Sediment Samples in Ponds

Semarang is one of the largest cities in Indonesia, and it was a coastal city with 33 km of coastline in 2016. The high emission and waste in Semarang City affect water pollution which impacts the presence of microorganisms such as bacteria. Isolation of anaerobic bacteria has been explored due to the difficulties of handling. One type of anaerobic bacteria is methanotroph bacteria. The lack of literature on methanotroph bacteria in the aquatic environment which in this study is specific to ponds, it is necessary to explore. The study aimed to isolate and determine the characteristics of methanotroph bacteria in ponds at Tirang Beach. Research methods used the exploratory and purposive sampling methods. Sampling was conducted at ponds in Tirang Beach at 3 stations consisting of 3 sampling points. Moreover, water sampling was employed to determine the variables of the aquatic environment and sediment samples for bacterial isolation. Bacterial isolation was carried out with liquid NMS media and agar, followed by Gram staining techniques to determine the characteristics of methanotroph bacteria. The abundance obtained from isolation with NMS agar media was 2.27 x 102 CFU/mL with 6 isolates that were successfully purified. Gram observation results produced 6 isolates with red cell walls or Gram-negative bacteria. The resulting bacterial cell forms are coccus, cocobacillus, and bacillus.