Abstract
Most micro-organisms exist in nature as complex mixtures which are referred to as microbial communities. Members of such communities potentially interact with each other in various ways, including as competitors, predators and symbionts. Communities range from extremely dense mixtures of organisms that are held together in biofilms by binding to each other and to a surface (e.g. in dental plaque), to the highly dilute communities that are found in nutrient-poor ocean water. Finding out what organisms are present within a microbial community and how they interact with each other is one of the most intriguing challenges in biology.
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Notes
- 1.
A micron is one thousandth of a millimetre.
- 2.
‘dNTPs’ refers to nucleoside triphosphates carrying deoxyribose (dATP, dTTP, dGTP, dCTP) which are the precursors for DNA synthesis. Two phosphate groups are lost as each nucleotide is added to the chain.
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Flint, H.J. (2020). How to Analyse Microbial Communities?. In: Why Gut Microbes Matter. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43246-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43246-1_3
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