ReviewMetaorganisms as the new frontier
Section snippets
Interfacial research to thoroughly understand host–microbe interactions
In physics, the interface between two phases has very different properties from that of the bulk phase and is important in a variety of processes; many natural and technological processes involve phenomena dominated by interfacial mechanics, that is, occurring within the regions of intersection between several fluid and/or solid phases. In contemporary zoology, specialization still has its place, but the dynamics of interdisciplinary approaches appear central to resolving some of the toughest
Metaorganisms – a new term for an old concept
In 1877, Karl Möbius, Professor of Zoology at the University of Kiel (Fig. 1), coined the term “biocenosis” for a community of living beings belonging to different species and associated by way of inter-species interdependence. In one of the first studies, later to become a classic, to be conducted in the emerging science of ecology, Möbius was seeking to determine why the oyster beds of Cancale, Marennes and Arcachon were becoming exhausted, while the oyster beds in the British river estuaries
Microbes as elements of a forgotten organ
All animals and plants, from protists to humans, are inhabited by microbial organisms. In fact, most of life's diversity originates from microbial organisms. It is therefore remarkable that the microbial world is so little recognized by the zoologist except in the context of animal or plant diseases and environmental decomposition. The reason for the general neglect is obvious: perception of the microbial world usually requires observation of the consequences of microbial activities, which can
Species interactions moderate evolutionary processes
A strictly microbe-dependent life style has profound evolutionary consequences – and implies that the phenotype of a healthy animal cannot be explained entirely by its genome. Based on field and laboratory observations indicating that corals can adapt rapidly to changing environmental conditions by altering their population of symbiotic bacteria (Kushmaro et al., 1996, Koren and Rosenberg, 2006, Rosenberg et al., 2007), a group of scientists at Tel Aviv University (Reshef et al., 2006) proposed
A call for transdisciplinary collaboration in zoology
Organisms do not live in isolation, but have evolved, and continue to evolve, in the context of complex communities and specific environmental conditions. The two case studies presented here show that concerted multidisciplinary efforts are required in the future to examine the relationship between multiple phenotypes and the environmental context of organisms. Evolutionary biologists are increasingly able to integrate information across many organisms, from multiple levels of organization and
Acknowledgements
We apologize to those authors whose work we were unable to cite due to space restrictions. We thank René Augustin for comments on the manuscript and him and Sören Franzenburg for providing figures. Supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and grants from the DFG Cluster of Excellence programs “The Future Ocean” and “Inflammation at Interfaces” (to T.C.G.B.), NIH RO1-AI50661 (to M.M.N.), NSF IOS 0817232 (to M.M.N.), the WM Keck Foundation (to M.M.N.) and a fellowship
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