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IMAGE: Micrograph showing Rothia cells (light blue) in their native habitat, a bacterial biofilm scraped from the human tongue. view more
Credit: Photo credit: Jessica Mark Welch, Marine Biological Laboratory.
Bacteria often show very strong biogeography - some bacteria are abundant in specific locations while absent from others - leading to major questions when applying microbiology to therapeutics or probiotics: how did the bacteria get into the wrong place? How do we add the right bacteria into the right place when the biogeography has gotten out of whack ?
These questions, though, have one big obstacle, bacteria are so tiny and numerous with very diverse and complicated populations which creates major challenges to understanding which subgroups of bacteria live where and what genes or metabolic abilities allow them to thrive in these wrong places.