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Competitive Bugs
23 March 2014

Competitive Bugs

It's a tough life being an E. coli bacterium. Not only do you have to grow and multiply, but there's all those other millions of bacteria to compete with. But there's one sure-fire way to beat the competition – evolution. All it takes is a change in an individual bug's DNA that gives it a competitive edge over the others, for example by multiplying a bit faster. These coloured blobs are representations of 'families', or clones, growing from two different types of individual bacteria (shown as blue and yellow) as they colonise the gut of a mouse. The thin point on the left side of each blob is the founder bacterium, and the shapes grow and shrink as the fortunes of each clone wax and wane. By studying how populations of bacteria in the gut change over time, researchers are getting a handle on the complex processes that drive evolution.

Written by Kat Arney

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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