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Teamwork makes bacteria more effective

25 August 2005

The number of species of bacteria, rather than any particular type, plays a crucial role in performing ecological services such as breaking down pollutants and waste, according to British and Canadian research published in Nature.

This finding has important implications for the way in which microbiologists view bacterial communities. Rather than searching for 'superbugs' that are capable of breaking down a pollutant, it might be better to search for efficient communities that work particularly well together.

The break-through finding was made by a team of researchers from the University of Oxford, the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and the University of Guelph while looking at how bacteria break down leaves.

Rather than simply observing the process performed by particular communities of bacteria, the researchers took a novel approach and separated the communities into their constituent species and then constructed different combinations of the species in bottles in the laboratory.

In each of the bottles they then measured the rate at which leaves were broken down, a crucial service by which bacteria recycle nutrients to plants.

Significantly, the number of species of bacteria, or biodiversity, was important in determining the rate at which the leaves were broken down. The most efficient service was not primarily the result of specific species - the leaf litter was broken down most quickly when many different species were working together.

Thomas Bell, based at Oxford University's Department of Zoology and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said, "Bacteria are of vital importance for many services that we take for granted, for example they break down the pollutants and municipal waste that we produce, so any step toward understanding how these communities operate is significant.

"The study suggests that to understand the details of how these services are provided require that we now concentrate on how bacteria operate together as whole communities. Such research is already underway in several industries, but this work signals that many surprises remain on the horizon."

Further information

Oxford University Press Office
Tel: 01865 280531

Barnaby Smith
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Press office
Tel: 01491 692439
Mob: 07832 160960

Notes

1. The article 'The contribution of species richness and composition to bacterial services' is to be published in Nature 25 August 2005.

2. The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) is the UK's leading research organisation for land and freshwater science. Its 500 scientists carry out research aims to improve our understanding of both the environment and the processes that underlie the Earth's support systems. It is one of the Natural Environment Research Council's research centres. CEH has eight research sites within England, Scotland and Wales and an administrative headquarters based at Swindon.

3. NERC is one of the UK's research councils. It uses a budget of about £350m a year to fund and carry out impartial scientific research in the sciences of the environment. NERC trains the next generation of independent environmental scientists. It is addressing some of the key questions facing mankind such as global warming, renewable energy and sustainable economic development.

Press release: 41/05