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Social Bacteria Know Who They Are (1 of 2)

Caption: An agar plate with four swarming populations of the pathogenic bacterium Proteus mirabilis. Each population started at the dark circle, and bacterial cells moved outwards from the dark circle in concentric circles on the surface of the plate. Swarming P. mirabilis strains form a visible boundary when encountering other, nonself strains of P. mirabilis. This image relates to an article that appeared in the July 11, 2008, issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS. The study, by Dr. Karine Gibbs and colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle, Wash., was titled "Genetic Determinants of Self Identity and Social Recognition in Bacteria."

Credit: Image courtesy of Karine Gibbs, Jules Milner-Brage and E. Peter Greenberg

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