Michael Vos from the university of oxford took 5 lots of 5 samples from an area of soil measuring 25cm by 25cm.and from each sample; he isolated Stenotrophomas bacteria and their associated phages. Phages infect bacteria, proliferate, burst out of the cell and then go on to infect new bacteria. Over a third of the bacteria were found to be sensitive to infection by the phages of the same soil. Therefore phages can control or regulate soil bacteria.
According to his experiment, bacteria is locally adapted, because it is less likely for bacteria from even a few centimeters away to be affected by phages of another area. The study demonstrates the importance of interactions between different types of soil microbes in structuring of biodiversity. The research also shows that phages are not placed near the bacteria they can infect randomly but by natural selection, making this remarkable because tiny and numerous microorganisms could be expected to be easily isolated, erasing such spatial structure.
Retrieved December 1, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com
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