Water bacteria have a green thumb
Friday, June 12, 2020 - 09:50
in Biology & Nature
The sheer endless expanses of the oceans are hostile deserts—at least from the perspective of a bacterium living in water. Tiny as it is, its chances of finding sufficient nutrients in the great mass of water would seem to be vanishingly small. However, as in other deserts, there are life-saving oases in the sea: for example, microorganisms find everything they need to live on the surfaces of aquatic plants and algae. Here, very different species can grow within the community of a biofilm, as it is called, where they exchange information and offer each other protection.