Cooperation Amongst Microorganisms'

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Cooperation Amongst Microorganisms.

• By James Akers

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Question 1

• It has been said, When the going gets rough, the
  tough cooperate. How is this reflected in the
  first paragraph by one of the fundamental
  organizing principles of life?
• Certain organisms cooperate together when one
  organism can only survive from the other. Each
  organism benefits from their cooperation. (e.g.
  the organism Dictyostelium discodium is profiled
  as single-celled, but when starvation occurs, it
  communicates with others to from aggregates,)

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Question 2

• If biofilm communities persist, why is calling an
  organism single-celled a misnomer?
• Most single-celled organisms can end up forming
  biofilms, which makes them dependent on other
  parts of the biofilm. By being dependent on the
  other bacteria, it communicates as a
  multi-cellular organism.

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Question 3

• What specific metabehavior is deemed by the
  authors as essential to maintenance of biofilms?
• Communication and the prevalence of biofilms by
  cooperating together.

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Question 4

• What is an emergent property and how is it
  related to what is called evo-devo in biology?
• An emergent property is a property of an organism
  that is produced by ancestral relationships from
  one or more organisms cooperating together, hence
  the term Evolutionary Development, or evo-devo.

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Question 5

• How is quorum-sensing related to epigenesis, or
  epigenetics?
• Quorum sensing is a tool that is used to signal
  bacteria to communicate/coordinate for certain
  tasks. By understanding epigenetics, or
  epigenesis, we can see that quorum sensing can be
  an effect that was adapted from earlier
  interactions as well as effecting future
  organisms.

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Question 6

• List 4 specific behaviors best carried out in
  concerted fashion as described by the authors
• 4 certain behaviors that are done specifically in
  grouped, or concerted fashion include
• The formation of protective biofilms
• The production of light
• The abilities to exchange DNA
• And the defying factors on attacking a host.

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Question 7

• What do heterocysts do in Anabaena?
• The neat thing about the cyanobacterium Anabaena,
  is that one of the cells will change into a
  heterocyst, which then fixes nitrogen from the
  air for the following cells to use.

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Question 8

• List 4 surfaces where bacteria can form biofilms
• Biofilms can form on many surfaces including
• Artificial joints or organs
• On roots and surfaces of crops
• Rocks in streams or rivers
• And even the human teeth.

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Question 9

• How do cooperative behaviors relate to density
  dependent factors for populations interactions?
• If there is a higher percentage of cooperation
  between the populations of organisms, then there
  will be a much greater population density of the
  organism.

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Question 10

• What are cheaters (in biofilms), and how are
  they related to police in biofilm communities?
• Cheaters are microorganisms that benefit from the
  biofilm but doesnt help the biofilm itself. The
  police of the biofilm help to monitor the
  cheaters and try to control them.

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Question 11

• Why does J.B.S Haldane say what he does abut
  altruism?
• The principle of altruism J.B.S Haldane shows
  reflects he would respect the organism, or
  relative, that contains the much greater portion
  of his genes than his genes in his distant
  relatives.

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Question 12

• Who formalized Haldanes ideas into a
  mathematical model?
• William D. Hamilton is known for formalizing
  Haldanes ideas of altruism into a mathematical
  model

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Question 13

• According to the authors, what is at the core of
  understanding biology?
• The core of understanding biology, as told by
  the authors, is that the cooperation of different
  organisms evolved over the years, and can ensure
  more populations to survive, reproduce, and
  continue to flourish.

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Question 14

• How does this relate to systems biology?
• systems biology is the study of the
  interactions between the components of a
  biological system, which is what this article is
  based on. Systems biology is a study that tries
  to understand the cooperation among biofilms
  among microorganisms.

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Bibliography

• http//biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request
  get-documentdoi10.13712fjournal.pbio...