What occurs during the death phase of bacterial growth?

During the death phase of bacterial growth, there is a significant decline in the population of bacteria. This phase occurs after the stationary phase, where the growth rate slows because of exhaustion of nutrients and accumulation of waste products. In this phase, the number of cells that die exceeds the number of new cells being produced. As a result, the overall population decreases.

This decline can lead to physiological changes in the surviving cells, as they struggle for limited resources and try to adapt to the harsh conditions. The death phase is characterized by the depletion of critical nutrients and a toxic environment, which hampers cell division and promotes cellular death, making the option indicating that more cells die than are produced accurate.

Other options presented do not apply to the death phase. For instance, the idea that cell division exceeds cell death is true in the log phase of growth, not during death. Resource levels being at their maximum would describe the lag or exponential phases when bacteria are actively dividing. Lastly, cells being in their most active metabolic rate reflects the behavior of bacteria in the log phase rather than the death phase, where metabolic activity would significantly decrease due to resource limitations.