For bacteria that cheat, food is at the forefront

Microbes that produce important secretions for use in a community suffer a blow to their own fitness for supplying the non-producing ‘cheater’ bacteria — but only when production requires the same nutrients that would otherwise go into growth and...

The importance of influencers on social media

Tracking the Twitter updates of a random sample of 300,000 active users over the course of a month reveals that this particular corner of social media and social networking is not quite as equitable and democratic as popular perception might have us believe. Indeed,...

Plants love microbes, and so do farmers

The Australian Sunshine Coast’s plant diversity has helped researchers confirm that nurture has the upper hand — at least when it comes to plant microbes. A study of microbial communities necessary for plant development could improve crop and plant yields....