Symbiosis
Abstract
Microorganisms arose and diversified before the appearance of large multicellular organisms. The bodies of the latter provided new potential habitats for microbes - habitats that were persistent, stable (from a microbial perspective) and nutrient-rich. As a result, large organisms, from oaks to humans, have been continuously enmeshed in complex interactions with microorganisms during their evolution. Biologists have paid most attention to associations with microbes that are pathogenic; typically, microbial infection has been viewed as deleterious, or at best irrelevant, to vigor and reproduction. But the last 15 years have witnessed increased appreciation of interactions that benefit the host as well as the microbe. These interactions are loosely grouped under the term 'symbiosis' and the microbial partners called 'symbionts'. Although the term 'symbiont' is typically applied to mutualistic microorganisms, it is often used to include associates for which the full spectrum of effects on hosts is not known.
- Publication:
-
Current Biology
- Pub Date:
- October 2006
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.cub.2006.09.019
- Bibcode:
- 2006CBio...16.R866M