by Janie — In storytelling, there is a famous principle called Chekhov's gun. "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise, don't put it there." This pithy (and very debatable) directive, attributed to the eponymous playwright, smells a whole lot like the (similarly very debatable) viewpoint of adaptationism... Read more →
A miniature piñata
by Christoph — Can you imagine a children's party in Mexico without a piñata as the main attraction? One of the kids hits the suspended piñata with a stick until it bursts and the entire contents, usually sweets, splatters onto those standing around waiting expectantly. Microbiologists sometimes throw a party, too, though... Read more →
Eukaryogenesis: Questions in Questions in Questions
by Janie — For a very long time, symbiogenesis was scoffed at as a fringe science. This mindset plagued the field from the get-go in the 1880s, when the botanist Andreas Franz Wilhem Schimper first put forth the idea that eukaryotic organelles might be bacterial, to the turn of the century, which saw the first key paper on symbiogenesis... Read more →
Mycorrhizae and Land Plants – An Update
by Roberto — I am fortunate that among the first impressions of my day, I take in this view of land plants. Given my proclivity for microbiology my mind inevitably wonders to what I cannot see, the underground network of filamentous fungi connecting the roots of those plants, the mycorrhizae. Read more →
Safeguarding Beetle Development
by Mechas and Roberto — This is the story of how pursuing a century-old observation led to the recent discovery the chemical ecology involved in protecting a beetle from fungal infection during larval molting. It shall come as no surprise that we would be thrilled by such a story; throughout the lifetime of the blog, we've had posts on insect-microbe symbioses... Read more →
In the Company of Bacteria: Amoebae
by Christoph — In times long past, highly evolved eukaryotes, for example biochemists, occasionally quipped that bacteria were nothing more than a bag of enzymes. Well, from the perspective of bacteria, one could easily return the compliment: eukaryotes, for example single-celled amoebae, are little more than a... Read more →
Green Sloths and Robots
by Roberto — ...in the case of red parrot feathers the pigment has the added benefit of protecting the plumage from bacterial degradation. Today I stay on the topic of animal coloration by describing the peculiar pelage pigment of sloths. Exactly what constitutes an eye-catching color is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Read more →
How to Be a Lichen
by Nastassja Noell — Lichens are symbiotic organisms – algae, fungi, cyanobacteria, bacteria and yeasts – that form miniature ecosystems that you can hold in the palm of your hand. They live on trees and rocks throughout the Southern Appalachians, and are also found in the Arctic, the Antarctic, rainforests, alpine tundra and especially in the desert. Read more →
In one step from commensal to mutualist (almost), part 2|2
by Christoph — I had concluded the first part by saying that I would now discuss what mutations Koga et al. (2022) found in two mutator E. coli lineages that allowed the bacteria to successfully "take over" from Pantoea sp. as symbionts in Plautia stali stinkbugs (termed "improved" lineages.) Here we go... Read more →
In one step from commensal to mutualist (almost), part 1|2
by Christoph — It is as true as it is, well, boring to keep saying that Escherichia coli is the best understood unicellular organism, and the most-studied with ~41,000 tagged entries in PubMed since 1932. But then, every five years or so, comes a surprise of what unexpected feats this unassuming bacterium is capable of. Read more →