Final answer:
Enriched media are used to cultivate fastidious bacteria by providing essential nutrients such as growth factors and vitamins. These include blood agar and chocolate agar, among others. Other types of media include chemically defined, complex, selective, and differential media.
Step-by-step explanation:
Media that contain complex organic substances such as blood for the growth of specific bacteria are referred to as enriched media. These media include additional growth factors, vitamins, and other essential nutrients to promote the growth of fastidious organisms, which require these nutrients to be added to the medium because they cannot synthesize them. Examples of enriched media are blood agar and chocolate agar, which are commonly used to grow bacteria such as those responsible for streptococcal infections.
Besides enriched media, there are various types of media used to grow and identify bacteria, such as chemically defined media, where all components are known and quantified, and complex media, which include ingredients such as extracts and digests of yeast, meat, plants, or soy and do not have a precisely known chemical composition. An example of complex media is Tryptic Soy Broth (TSB). Moreover, media can also be selective, favoring the growth of certain microorganisms while inhibiting others, and differential, allowing for the distinction between bacterial types based on growth patterns or colony characteristics.