Respiration in Plant Bacteria

Aerobic Bacteria: These bacteria require oxygen as terminal acceptor of electrons and will not grow under anaerobic conditions(i.e in the absence of O2) Some micrococcus species are obligate aerobes (i.e they must have oxygen to survive)

Anaerobic bacteria : These bacteria do not use oxygen for growth and metabolism but obtain their energy from fermentation reaction. eg. Clostridium species.

Capnophilic bacteria are those that require CO2  for growth.

Facultative anaerobes: Bacteria can grow either oxidatively using oxygen as a terminal electron acceptor or anaerobically using fermentation reaction to obtain energy. Bacteria that are facultative anaerobes are often termed ' aerobes'. When a facultative anaerobe such as E. Coli is present at a site of an infection like an abdominal abscess it can rapidly consume all available O2 and change to anaerobic metabolism, producing an anaerobic environment and thus, allow the anaerobic bacteria that are present to grow and cause disease.

Endospores are structures formed in bacillus bacteria during unfavourable conditions. Fortunately most pathogenic bacteria (except tetanus and anthrax bacteria) do not form endospores.