title: Artificial colonization as a method for studying the normal habitat of mycobacteria.
abstract: Sixteen species of mycobacteria were inoculated into samples of earth which were cultured immediately afterwards and then monthly for six months. Five species, and possibility a sixth, colonized the habitat suggesting that it was natural to them. Experiments of this type should provide a useful approach to field studies of the sources of opportunist mycobacteria.
mesh_terms: D009161:Mycobacterium; D012988:Soil Microbiology