Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Microbiology
Building a Queer- and Trans-Inclusive Microbiology Conference
Published: 2023-05-03
Subjects: Gender Equity in Education, Microbiology
Microbiology conferences can be powerful places to build collaborations and exchange scientific thought, but for queer and transgender (trans) scientists they can also become sources of alienation and isolation. Many conference organizers would like to create welcoming and inclusive events but feel ill-equipped to make this vision a reality, and a historical lack of representation of queer and [...]
Breaking down microbial hierarchies
Published: 2023-03-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Microbial communities that degrade natural polysaccharides are thought to have a hierarchical organization and one-way positive interactions from higher to lower trophic levels. Daniels et al. have recently shown that reciprocal interactions between trophic levels can occur and that these interactions change over the duration of a batch culture.
How do microbes grow in nature? The role of population dynamics in microbial ecology and evolution
Published: 2023-02-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Systems Biology
The growth of microbial populations in nature is dynamic, as the cellular physiology and environment of these populations change. Population dynamics have wide-ranging consequences for ecology and evolution, determining how species interact and which mutations fix. Understanding these dynamics is also critical for clinical and environmental applications in which we need to promote or inhibit [...]
Psychological and Cultural Factors Influencing Antibiotic Prescription
Published: 2023-01-20
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Psychiatry and Psychology
Humans have been giving a selective advantage to antibiotic-resistant bacteria worldwide by inundating the environment with antimicrobials for about one century. As a result, the efficacy of antibiotics has been impaired. Antibiotic resistance is a public health problem, responsible for increases in mortality and extended stays at hospitals. Hospitals and other clinical settings have implemented [...]
Psychological and Cultural Factors Influencing Antibiotic Prescription
Published: 2023-01-02
Subjects: Biology, Economics, Geography, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Psychiatry and Psychology, Psychology, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Humans have inundated the environment worldwide with antimicrobials for about one century, giving selective advantage to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Therefore, antibiotic resistance has become a public health problem responsible for increased mortality, and extended hospital stays because the efficacy of antibiotics has diminished. Hospitals and other clinical settings have implemented [...]
When bacteria are phage playgrounds: interactions between viruses, cells and mobile genetic elements
Published: 2022-07-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Studies of viral adaptation have focused on the selective pressures imposed by hosts. However, there is increasing evidence that interactions between viruses, cells, and other mobile genetic elements (MGEs) are determinant to the success of infections. These interactions are often associated with antagonism and competition, but sometimes involve cooperation or parasitism. They involve mechanism [...]
Psychological and Cultural Factors Influencing Antibiotic Prescription
Published: 2022-06-20
Subjects: Bacteriology, Child Psychology, Health Psychology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Psychiatry and Psychology, Psychological Phenomena and Processes, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sociology, Sociology of Religion
Humans have been giving a selective advantage to antibiotic-resistant bacteria worldwide by inundating the environment with antimicrobials for about one century. As a result, the efficacy of antibiotics has been impaired. Antibiotic resistance is a public health problem, responsible for increases in mortality and extended stays at hospitals. Hospitals and other clinical settings have implemented [...]
Scaling up and down: movement ecology for microorganisms
Published: 2022-06-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Movement is critical for the fitness of organisms, both large and small. It dictates how individuals acquire resources, evade predators, exchange genetic material, and respond to stressful environments. Movement also influences ecological and evolutionary dynamics at scales beyond the individual organism. However, the links between individual motility and the processes that generate and maintain [...]
A minimum data standard for vector competence experiments
Published: 2022-06-14
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Entomology, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Virology
The growing threat of vector-borne diseases, highlighted by recent epidemics, has prompted increased focus on the fundamental biology of vector-virus interactions. To this end, experiments are often the most reliable way to measure vector competence (the potential for arthropod vectors to transmit certain pathogens). Data from these experiments are critical to understand outbreak risk, but – [...]
Gut microbiota repeatability is contingent on temporal scale and age in wild meerkats
Published: 2022-03-29
Subjects: Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Microbiology
Inter-individual differences in gut microbiota composition are hypothesized to generate variation in host fitness – a premise for the evolution of host-gut microbe symbioses. However, recent evidence suggests that gut microbial communities are highly dynamic, challenging the notion that individuals harbour unique and stable gut microbial phenotypes. Leveraging a long-term dataset of wild [...]
The Global Forest Health Crisis: A Public Good Social Dilemma in Need of International Collective Action
Published: 2022-03-10
Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Behavioral Economics, Biodiversity, Biology, Biosecurity, Botany, Economics, Entomology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Studies, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, International Relations, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Other Plant Sciences, Pathogenic Microbiology, Plant Biology, Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, Political Science, Science and Technology Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Society is confronted by interconnected threats to ecological sustainability. Among these is the devastation of forests by destructive non-native pathogens and insects introduced through global trade, leading to the loss of critical ecosystem services and a global forest health crisis. We argue that the forest health crisis is a public good social dilemma and propose a response framework that [...]
New insight into colonies of Microcystis (Cyanobacteria) as multi-specific floating biofilms
Published: 2022-01-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology
The ability to form biofilms is a functional trait shared by many bacterial species. Biofilms provide bacteria a sheltered environment where the nutrients and oxygen gradients create a heterogeneous matrix and promote cells to differentiate their metabolism and functions according to the position they occupy inside the matrix. Species of the Microcystis genus are among the most common [...]
Source and seasonality of epizootic mycoplasmosis in free-ranging pronghorn (Antilocapra americana)
Published: 2021-12-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Pathogenic Microbiology, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine
Mycoplasma bovis is an economically important bacterial pathogen of cattle and bison that most commonly causes pneumonia, polyarthritis and mastitis. M. bovis is prevalent in cattle and commercial bison; however, infections in other species are rare. In early 2019, we identified M. bovis in free-ranging pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) in northeastern Wyoming, USA. Here we report on additional [...]
Selfish, promiscuous, and sometimes useful: how mobile genetic elements drive horizontal gene transfer in microbial populations
Published: 2021-12-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Microbiology
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) drives microbial adaptation but is often under the control of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) whose interests are not necessarily aligned with those of their hosts. In general, transfer is costly to the donor cell while potentially beneficial to the recipients. The diversity and plasticity of cell-MGEs interactions, and those among MGEs, results in complex [...]
Microbiotic particles in water and soil, water-soil microbiota coalescences, and antimicrobial resistance
Published: 2021-11-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology
Bacterial organisms like surfaces. Water and soil contain a multiplicity of particulated material where bacterial populations and communities might attach. Microbiotic particles refers to any type of small particles (less than 2 mm) where bacteria (and other microbes) might attach, resulting in medium- long-term colonization. In this work, the interactions of bacterial organisms with microbiotic [...]