Cnidarians remotely control bacteria

In modern life sciences, a paradigm shift is becoming increasingly evident: life forms are no longer considered to be self-contained units, but instead highly-complex and functionally-interdependent communities of organisms. ...

Hostage situation or harmony? Researchers rethink symbiosis

Relationships where two organisms depend on each other, known as symbiosis, evoke images of partnership and cooperation. But a new study in Nature Ecology and Evolution shows that, when it comes to certain microorganisms, ...

Symbiotic ciliates and bacteria have a common ancestor

Ciliates, just like humans, are colonized by a vast diversity of bacteria. Some ciliates and their bacterial symbionts have become friends for life, as researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in ...

'Farming' bacteria to boost growth in the oceans

Chemosynthetic symbionts are bacteria living inside or on the surface of animals, supplying their host with food that would otherwise be unavailable. It has long been known that these bacteria fix carbon and convert it into ...

Microbe-mediated adaptation to a novel diet

Insects are the most diverse animal group on earth. Many of them feed on plants, and they are constantly challenged by the diverse direct and indirect defenses of their food plants as well as an imbalanced nutrient composition. ...

How scavenging fungi became a plant's best friend

Glomeromycota is an ancient lineage of fungi that has a symbiotic relationship with roots that goes back nearly 420 million years to the earliest plants. More than two thirds of the world's plants depend on this soil-dwelling ...

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