BACKGROUND Microbial communities are ubiquitous on Earth. The microbiota of different
habitats are diverse and have distinct functional traits, but there are common ecological …

Myxococcus xanthus, like other myxobacteria, is a social bacterium that moves and feeds
cooperatively in predatory groups. On surfaces, rod-shaped vegetative cells move in search …

The interaction of bacteria with surfaces has important implications in a range of areas,
including bioenergy, biofouling, biofilm formation, and the infection of plants and animals …

Research on how bacteria adapt to changing environments underlies the contemporary
biological understanding of signal transduction (ST), and ST provides the foundation of the …

TIGRFAMs, available online at http://www. jcvi. org/tigrfams is a database of protein family
definitions. Each entry features a seed alignment of trusted representative sequences, a …

Microbial communities span many orders of magnitude, ranging in scale from hundreds of
cells on a single particle of soil to billions of cells within the lumen of the gastrointestinal …

Bacteria frequently exchange metabolites by diffusion through the extracellular environment,
yet it remains generally unclear whether bacteria can also use cell–cell connections to …

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) can function as nanoscale vectors that mediate bacterial
interactions in microbial communities. How bacteria recognize and recruit OMVs inter …

All bacteria must compete for growth niches and other limited environmental resources.
These existential battles are waged at several levels, but one common strategy entails the …

Myxobacteria are Gram-negative eubacteria and they thrive in a variety of habitats including
soil rich in organic matter, rotting wood, animal dung and marine environment. Myxobacteria …