There has been a recent increase in the feeding of unconventional diets, including whole-prey diets, to domestic pet cats. Our objective was to characterise faecal microbial populations of domestic cats fed whole and ground (6·35 mm grind) raw 1-3-d-old chicks (Rodent Pro). Faecal samples were collected from neutered male domestic cats (mean age = 5·7 years) fed these diet items in a crossover ...

The study of soil microbial populations and diversity is an important way to understanding the soil energy process. In this study we analyzed the characteristics of soil microbial populations of the Tarim Desert Highway shelter-forest, by identifying microbial fatty acids and using methods of conventional cultivation. The results illustrated that the amount of soil microbial activity and the di...

Diverse and complex microbial ecosystems are found in virtually every environment on earth, yet we know very little about their composition and ecology. Comprehensive identification and quantification of the constituents of these microbial communities--a 'census'--is an essential foundation for understanding their biology. To address this problem, we developed, tested and optimized a DNA oligon...

It is well known that food stress resulting from density-dependent factors affects the mutation rate and hence promotes diversity. It is also known that in bacterial cultures the quality and composition of the growing media conditions the emergence of different spatial patterns. We would like to address the following question: how will the different spatial regions with well defined geometrical...

A strenuous debate continues to rage over the use of DNA typing as forensic evidence (1-5). One of the most contentious issues has been how to calculate the probability of a coincidental match between the DNA of a suspect and DNA taken from the scene of a crime (and thought to belong to the perpetrator). In principle, this probability depends upon the genetic structure of the human population, ...

Microbial ecology provides the link between basic biochemical and molecular studies on toxicity reduction by microbial metabolism and environmental studies that determine exposure. This link provides the ability to determine which microorganisms are responsible for the actual transformations in nature, thereby establishing how predictive the laboratory pathway, kinetic, regulatory, and enzyme m...

The study of the microbial communities has gained traction in recent years with the advent of next-generation sequencing with, or without, PCR-based amplification of the 16S ribosomal RNA region. Such studies have been applied to topics as diverse as human health and environmental ecology. Fewer studies have investigated taxa outside of bacteria, however. We present here data demonstrating the ...

The tolerance of bacterial populations to biocidal or antibiotic treatment has been well documented in both biofilm and planktonic settings. However, there is still very little known about the mechanisms that produce this tolerance. Evidence that small, non-mutant subpopulations of bacteria are not affected by an antibiotic challenge has been accumulating and provides an attractive explanation ...

In natural settings, microbes tend to grow in dense populations [1-4] where they need to push against their surroundings to accommodate space for new cells. The associated contact forces play a critical role in a variety of population-level processes, including biofilm formation [5-7], the colonization of porous media [8, 9], and the invasion of biological tissues [10-12]. Although mechanical f...

In bacteria and archaea, viruses are the primary infectious agents, acting as virulent, often deadly pathogens. A form of adaptive immune defense known as CRISPR-Cas enables microbial cells to acquire immunity to viral pathogens by recognizing specific sequences encoded in viral genomes. The unique biology of this system results in evolutionary dynamics of host and viral diversity that cannot b...