A new study led by Tapomoy Bhattacharjee‘s group shows that rods vs. cocci grow in distinct ways in porous 3D matrices, and these differences make rods more robust to increasing matrix viscosity. Bacteria in natural habitats likely live in such matrices; indeed, the bacteria used in this study were isolated from flour beetle guts in our lab. So, rods gain a growth advantage when competing with cocci in increasingly stiff gels, likely because they are better able to access nutrients. This was a fun collaboration for us, and we are excited to follow up on how selection pressure imposed by physical properties of habitats influence bacterial evolution. Read the paper here, and check out this article explaining the work.
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