Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 17, 2026

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations
Published on: October 29, 2016
Influence of sustainability and immigration in assembling bacterial populations of known size and function
Mike Manefield1, Andrew Whiteley, Tom Curtis
1Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, CMBB, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia. manefield@unsw.edu.au
Abstract:
The rational assembly of microbial communities to perform desired functions would be of great practical benefit to society. Broadly speaking, there are two major theoretical foundations for microbial community assembly: one based on island biogeography theory and another based on niche theory. In this study, we compared a parameter from each theory (immigration rate and sustainability, respectively) to ascertain which was more influential in establishing a functional bacterial population in phenol degrading activated sludge over a 30-day period. Two bacterial strains originally isolated from activated sludge, but differing in their ability to sustain a population in this environment, were repeatedly added to activated sludge reactors at different doses. The resulting size of each population was monitored by competitive polymerase chain reaction. Large, unexpected, yet reproducible fluctuations in population sizes were observed. Irrespective of this, difference in the ability to sustain a population in this environment, overshadowed the influence of 100-fold differences in immigration rate.
Related Concept Videos
Bioreactor Controls-III
Evolution of New Traits in Microbes
Scale-Up Processes
Evolution of Microbial Genome
Microbial Growth Measurement: Indirect Methods
Antibiotic Selection

