ABSTRACT
Topics of microbial survival and dormancy have been of interest to both microbiologists and others for some time. Microbial burial, isolation, and reculture imply microbial survival. Both soil and aquatic microbial communities may have served as the inoculum for subsurface environments in the past. Most subsurface environments contain low numbers of cells, and therefore the study of the microbial communities in the subsurface has had to await techniques sensitive enough to describe them. Lipid analyses can be performed to reveal much about the subsurface microbial community and its activity. The existence of spores in the subsurface has been inferred primarily through culture of fungi, actinomycetes, and spore-forming bacteria. The fact that living microbes can be found in virtually every subsurface environment studied, means that there is a natural inoculum for bioremediation efforts. At many sites, the subsurface is teeming with life, primarily bacteria.
