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A blog for sharing appreciation of the width and depth of microbes and microbial activities on this planet.

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Life After CPR (once again...)

by Christoph  
As true aficiona­das y afi­cio­na­dos around the world do, Steve Pe­trov­ski's lab at La Trobe Uni­ver­si­ty in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia went on the hunt for bac­terio­pha­ges in the wild. Which they didn't find, but their booty was a pre­da­to­ry bac­te­ri­um, and... Read more →

Posted on January 31, 2022 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)

E. O. Wilson (1929−2021)

by Roberto  
The world lost one of its premier de­fenders of bio­di­ver­si­ty and a pio­neer­ing eco­lo­gist and evo­lu­tio­na­ry bio­lo­gist when E. O. Wil­son died on De­cem­ber 26, 2021, at the age of 92. We start the year ho­nor­ing the me­mory... Read more →

Posted on January 06, 2022 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0)

First the Fire, Then the Fungus

by Roberto  
Fire is a fun­da­men­tal eco­lo­gi­cal pro­cess. Through­out the his­tor­y of life on Earth, fire has been a re­gu­latory force that great­ly in­flu­en­ces eco­sys­tem func­tion and evo­lu­tion. Its ef­fects are not felt gra­du­al­ly but rather through pe­ri­od­ic, sud­den, and ca­tas­troph­ic ef­fects on po­pu­la­tion siz­es, com­mu­ni­ty com­po­si­tion, and nu­trient cyc­ling... Read more →

Posted on December 06, 2021 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lost in the Pacific Mangrove Forest Microbiomes

by Mechas Zambrano  
One of the perks of being a mi­cro­bio­lo­gist is par­ti­ci­pat­ing in ex­pe­di­tions at re­mote lo­ca­tions to col­lect samp­les for our proj­ects. My most re­cent ex­cur­sion was to the south­ern Pa­ci­fic coast of Co­lom­bia, a far-off re­gion re­plete with man­grove for­ests. The pur­pose was to ob­tain samp­les of the bi­valve Ana­da­ra tu­ber­cu­lo­sa, lo­cal­ly... Read more →

Posted on November 29, 2021 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Hunger Games

by Elio  
I am not usually drawn to start out an ar­ticle by con­si­der­ing a bac­te­ri­um's name, but when con­front­ed with Ag­gre­ga­ti­bac­ter ac­ti­no­my­ce­tem­co­mit­ans, I had to take a pause. A well-tra­vel­ed Gram-negative coc­co­ba­cil­lus, this car­rier of such a con­vo­lut­ed mo­ni­ker start­ed life simp­ly as an Ac­ti­no­ba­cil­lus... Read more →

Posted on October 14, 2021 at 01:30 AM in Ecology, Pathogens, Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why Calcify?

by Roberto  
Janie's re­cent Bio-Brick post, where she in­tro­duces mi­cro­bi­al­ly in­duced cal­cite pre­ci­pi­ta­tion, prompt­ed me to con­tinue on the to­pic. In con­trast to the amor­phous chalk Janie de­scribed, which is pro­duced by bac­te­ria from lime­stone, I'll be de­scrib­ing a ve­ry dif­ferent sort of chalk. Still cal­cium car­bo­nate, but with a com­ple­te­ly dif­fer­ent ge­ne­sis. Read more →

Posted on October 04, 2021 at 02:30 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Physiology & Genetics, Protists | Permalink | Comments (0)

Transient Thoughts on Transduction

by Roberto  
What with the all the talk about CRISPR, the renewed interest in phage therapy, the widespread occurrence of huge phages (to mention but a few of the reasons phage are constantly in the news these days), it's no exaggeration to say that once again in biology "phage are all the rage"... Read more →

Posted on September 27, 2021 at 01:00 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Physiology & Genetics | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fine Reading: Evolution of Pathogen Tolerance

by Roberto  
While reading a review yesterday, I recalled a conversation I had with a student nearly forty years ago. He did not appear interested in the subject of my lectures – bacterial genetics and physiology – so I was curious to know the reasons why. Read more →

Posted on September 23, 2021 at 04:00 AM in Ecology, Evolution, Pathogens | Permalink | Comments (0)

Farewell San Francisco Sourdough?

by Roberto  
Back in 1980, when I was a post-doc in the San Francisco Bay Area, I began to develop a taste for what I considered a truly unique bread: San Francisco sourdough. There was a certain mystique to it, everyone familiar with it claimed there was nothing like it anywhere else... Read more →

Posted on September 16, 2021 at 01:00 AM in Ecology, Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rainfall and a Phyllosphere's Microbiota

by Mechas Zambrano and Roberto  
Where do the microbes that colonize newly emerging ecosystems come from? Plants are ideal systems to address this fundamental question in microbial ecology. When a seed germinates, new ecosystems emerge as the plant grows and acquires its microbiota... Read more →

Posted on September 09, 2021 at 01:00 AM in Ecology | Permalink | Comments (0)

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