Community ecology: For marine microbes, it's not who you are, but what you do
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - 09:30
in Biology & Nature
When you're a tiny creature in a vast ocean it pays to hang out with the right crowd, regardless of whether they are related to you or not, a new study into the amazingly diverse world of marine microbes has found. For bacteria at least, it seems that what matters more than your species identity is whether you have specific genes that let you work with other species to form a functioning community.