Artificial colonization as a method for studying the normal habitat of mycobacteria.
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.
D009161:Mycobacterium; D012988:Soil Microbiology