Association for Biology Laboratory Education

Koch’s Crickets: A Study in Etiology
 

C. Brian Odom

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2001, Volume 22

Abstract

Students apply Koch’s Postulates in an attempt to discover the causative agent of “Pink Plague” a disease that has struck a group of commercially raised crickets. During the course of this exercise the students will isolate the suspected pathogen from one of a group of infected crickets. They will then characterize the isolated organism and use it to infect a new group of crickets to see if they can reproduce the same symptoms in the newly infected group. Reisolation of the suspected pathogen from this second group of organisms will confirm this organism as the etiologic agent of “Pink Plague.”

Keywords:  microbiology, cricket, etiology, Koch, Serratia marcescens

Clemson University (2000)