A new technique devised by researchers from North Carolina State
University and the University of Calgary provides a more in-depth look at the
composition of and activity within microbial communities -- the microscopic
life within our bodies and all around us.
Rather than relying on a survey of the number of microbes
present in a certain sample, the new technique attempts to assess the biomass
-- the protein abundance -- of those microbes, which include bacteria, viruses
and other tiny forms of life. Microbial communities play an important role in
animal and plant health and disease, as well as in important environmental
processes such as decomposition of organic matter and nutrient cycling in soils
and oceans. Studies on these communities have become increasingly widespread in
recent years.
The researchers tested the new method in Rocky Mountain alkaline
soda lakes, slimy bodies of water with high salinity and pH values. They found,
in one of the lakes, that the new method was able to identify algae that
weren't found by the more common "counting" method.
The researchers also used the new method to examine an existing
data set of saliva from multiple human mouths and found a lot more variation in
microbial communities than previous studies showed.
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Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle