New research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reveals that some unlikely subjects--bacteria--can have social structures similar to plants and animals.
The research shows that a few individuals in groups of closely related bacteria have the ability to produce chemical compounds that kill or slow the growth of other populations of bacteria in the environment, but not harm their own.
Published in the September 7 issue of the journal Science, the finding suggests that bacteria in the environment can play different social roles and that competition occurs not only among individual bacteria, but also among coexisting ecological populations.
The National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, funded the research.
"Bacteria typically have been considered purely selfish organisms and bacterial populations as groups of clones," said Otto Cordero, a theoretical biologist and lead researcher on the paper. "This result contrasts with what we know about animal and plant populations, in which individuals can divide labors, perform different complementary roles and act synergistically."
Cordero and colleagues from MIT, along with researchers from the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, studied whether population-level organization exists for bacteria in the wild.
They reasoned social structure can reduce conflict within populations of plants and animals and determine aggression towards competing biological populations. "Think of a population of lions in the Serengeti or a population of fish in a lake," said Cordero. But could the same be true for populations of bacteria?
"It is difficult to know what the environmental interactions really are, because microbes are too small for us to observe them in action," said Ma
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| Contact: Bobbie Mixon bmixon@nsf.gov 703-292-8485 National Science Foundation Source:Eurekalert |
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