Collective memory discovered in bacteria

It seems the capacity to share information about environmental conditions are shared even in relation to the first life forms that inhabited this planet.


Collective interaction is also apparent in all animals especially in relation to eating.

This experiment presents a stressor to bacterium placed into an environment under scientific conditions. the result is that they interact with each other and share information as to the situation.....

Individual bacterial cells have short memories. But groups of bacteria can develop a collective memory that can increase their tolerance to stress. This has been demonstrated experimentally for the first time in a study by Eawag and ETH Zurich scientists published in PNAS.

Source

Martin Ackermann comments: "If we understand this collective effect, it may improve our ability to control bacterial populations." The findings are relevant, for example, to our understanding of how pathogens can resist antibiotics, or how the performance of bacterial cultures in industrial processes or wastewater treatment plants can be maintained under dynamic conditions. After all, bacteria play a crucial role in almost all bio- and geochemical processes. From a human perspective, depending on the particular process, they are either beneficial -- e.g. if they break down pollutants or convert nutrients into energy -- or harmful, especially if they cause diseases. For the researchers, says Mathis, another important conclusion can be drawn: "If you want to understand the behavior and fate of microbial populations, it's sometimes necessary to analyze every single cell."

Same link.

This behavior presents that communication is inherent even to the extent of one celled animals.

As well as offers a unique perspective into how multicellular life formed.

a reply to: Kashai

In the book Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins, I read in the 1980's there is a section that tells about experiments done by Russian scientists where they separated bacteria or cells of some sort in a single container by a quartz plate. They put deadly poison into one side and observed the other side died as well as the poisoned group. They found that the poisoned cells had communicated with the other group safe from the poison and that to protect themselves they changed their own chemistry to survive the effects of the poison. But the changes they made to their own chemistry was so extreme that they died from the attempt when no poison was introduced to the other side. That was one of several arguments in the book for the ability of these microorganisms and all plants to communicate as a collective or individually. They may have isolated the particular wavelength of EM or otherwise the transmission medium by now. It will likely vary by species. Other books by Tompkins also get deeper into these things.

Decision making is not limited to animals like humans or birds. Bacteria also make decisions with intricate precision. Imagine being so tiny that you are literally moved by water molecules bumping into you. This is what bacteria encounter perpetually. Now, imagine having no eyes, no ears, no sense of touch, no taste or nose. How would you know what or who was around you? How would you find food now as compared to where you were a short time ago? This is where being able to sense important things like a food source is critical. Bacteria have this on their “mind” all the time. Depending on the size of a bacterium’s genome, these tiny organisms have the ability to sense hundreds to thousands of internal and external signals like carbon sources, nitrogen sources, and pH changes. If these bacteria are motile (able to move around), they can compare how conditions are for them now against how they were a few seconds ago. That’s right, bacteria have a memory albeit short. If conditions are better, they can continue to move in a forward direction. If conditions are worse compared to a few seconds earlier, they can change direction and continue searching for better conditions in their environment to generate energy. But, how do they decide?

Source

a reply to: ZeroGhost


Animals communicate all kinds of things via methodology inherent to structure.

Bacteria working together to deal with a problem fits squarely into the issue of animals that group together to survive.

Also having a way to communicate the need for that.

How exactly would a Bacterium collapse a wave form?

a reply to: Kashai

wouldn't this essentially be epigenetic markers?

Humans, and just about any other biological entity, has an "species memory" that is pertinent to a local group. Its not a "100th monkey" type of thing...just real genetic changes that arise in response to the environment.

From a practical standpoint, I wonder what this type of experiment/finding will do for the developing treatment for resistant bacteria?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan


I also see the value of research into diseases.

But in relation to survival collective interaction can lead to cooperation in relation to physical contact.

One celled animals interacting this way could have had something to do with the development of multicellular life.

So what about the cells in our brain, can those change as well? If bacteria has the same anatomy and physiology of a cell, then that might mean we can communicate telepathically. Move stuff with our minds.. Or

Am I wrong again?

originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan




But in relation to survival collective interaction can lead to cooperation in relation to physical contact.

Right. Am i misundestanding here, or isn't that basically epigenetic activity (or, a parallel to epigenetic activity)?

a reply to: luciferslight

What's more we are in a symbiotic relationship with bacteria having more bacteria cells than our own human cells on our body and in our gut

a reply to: luciferslight


I doubt cells in a multicellular form of life actually are capable of independent thought.

Rather multicellular life in relation to some situation relation to survival got together and in relation to communication?

Was expressed in relation to the whole of such an animal or human in postulate.

Environmental conditions when bacteria as one celled animals were the only life form that existed on Earth. At some point began working together and the advantage in relation to survival, to bacteria being attached to each other physically.

When a human child is conceived it begins from one cell to more that do not separate from each other. Due to such a cooperation, as a whole. They increase the chances of each individual cells surviving way longer, than each as individuals cells as bacteria can. on there own.

Collective memory is the shared pool of knowledge and information in the memories of two or more members of a social group. The English phrase “collective memory” and the equivalent French phrase “la mémoire collective” appeared in the second-half of the nineteenth century. The philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs analyzed and advanced the concept of the collective memory in the book La mémoire collective (1950). Collective memory can be shared, passed on, and constructed, by large and small social groups. Examples of these groups could include a government or popular culture, among others. [1] Collective memory parallels the memory of a person who is better at recalling images than words; but also exhibits key differences and features, such as cross-cueing.

Source

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Even though all the cells of the human body share a common genomic blueprint, epigenetic activity such as DNA methylation, introduces molecular diversity that results in functionally and biologically different cellular constituents. In cancers, this ability of epigenetic activity to introduce molecular diversity is emerging as a powerful classifier of biological aggressiveness.

Source


Multicellular life is a functional mutation.

Can bacteria internally develop cancer or some equivalent??

For billions of years, single-celled creatures had the planet to themselves, floating through the oceans in solitary bliss. Some microorganisms attempted multicellular arrangements, forming small sheets or filaments of cells. But these ventures hit dead ends. The single cell ruled the earth.

Then, more than 3 billion years after the appearance of microbes, life got more complicated. Cells organized themselves into new three-dimensional structures. They began to divide up the labor of life, so that some tissues were in charge of moving around, while others managed eating and digesting. They developed new ways for cells to communicate and share resources. These complex multicellular creatures were the first animals, and they were a major success. Soon afterward, roughly 540 million years ago, animal life erupted, diversifying into a kaleidoscope of forms in what’s known as the Cambrian explosion. Prototypes for every animal body plan rapidly emerged, from sea snails to starfish, from insects to crustaceans. Every animal that has lived since then has been a variation on one of the themes that emerged during this time.

How did life make this spectacular leap from unicellular simplicity to multicellular complexity? Nicole King has been fascinated by this question since she began her career in biology. Fossils don’t offer a clear answer: Molecular data indicate that the “Urmetazoan,” the ancestor of all animals, first emerged somewhere between 600 and 800 million years ago, but the first unambiguous fossils of animal bodies don’t show up until 580 million years ago. So King turned to choanoflagellates, microscopic aquatic creatures whose body type and genes place them right next to the base of the animal family tree. “Choanoflagellates are to my mind clearly the organism to look at if you’re looking at animal origins,” King said. In these organisms, which can live either as single cells or as multicellular colonies, she has found much of the molecular toolkit necessary to launch animal life. And to her surprise, she found that bacteria may have played a crucial role in ushering in this new era.

Source

The choanoflagellates are a group of free-living unicellular and colonial flagellate eukaryotes considered to be the closest living relatives of the animals. Choanoflagellates are collared flagellates having a funnel shaped collar of interconnected microvilli at the base of a flagellum. They have a distinctive cell morphology characterized by an ovoid or spherical cell body 3–10 µm in diameter with a single apical flagellum surrounded by a collar of 30–40 microvilli (see figure). Movement of the flagellum creates water currents that can propel free-swimming choanoflagellates through the water column and trap bacteria and detritus against the collar of microvilli, where these foodstuffs are engulfed. This feeding provides a critical link within the global carbon cycle, linking trophic levels. In addition to their critical ecological roles, choanoflagellates are of particular interest to evolutionary biologists studying the origins of multicellularity in animals. As the closest living relatives of animals, choanoflagellates serve as a useful model for reconstructions of the last unicellular ancestor of animals.

Source

a reply to: Kashai

Have you ever heard of Archeons? Super bacteria that heard and control regular bacteria like cattle. Some of the first lifeforms on Earth I believe. Panspermia arrivals no doubt? How intelligent could they be? Worth a look I think.

ZG

Well, our bodies are made up of cells that communicate with each other, resulting from a sperm and egg cell originally. They are all related. Now bacteria are all related if they come from an innitial cell. So why wouldn't they be able to communicate like the cells of a body. Our mind is in control of our cells, but each cell is an individual and they work together. In fact every cell in our body originates from the same type of stem cell. Now our brain is not controlling how and where they form. Why do we look as like as we do?

a reply to: ZeroGhost


Do you mean Archaea?

Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaebacteria kingdom), but this classification is outdated.[3] Archaeal cells have unique properties separating them from the other two domains of life, Bacteria and Eukaryota. The Archaea are further divided into multiple recognized phyla. Classification is difficult because the majority have not been studied in the laboratory and have only been detected by analysis of their nucleic acids in samples from their environment.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: Kashai

Great thread and fascinating information.

What grabbed my interest was that this means of communication and that presented by ZeroGhost goes a long way to explain intelligent design. Its our arrogance that keeps us thinking that we with voices and audible language are the only species that can communicate effectively, but if communication exists between even single cells and bacteria then everything thing organic on our planet communicates. Perhaps Shelldrak'es morphic resonance field exists through the spectrum from the single cell up to us and will exist from beyond our species once that develops. I will certainly get a copy of Peter Tompkins book if I can.

Further reading...

ankara.lti.cs.cmu.edu...

If you’ve ever tried to pick a location for dinner with a medium to large group of people, you know that group communication and decision making can be really hard.

So it may come as a surprise that many bacteria are actually quite good at this! And new research suggests that we might be able to disrupt that “group communication” in ways that could make agriculture safer without the use of traditional pesticides.

Bacteria, it turns out, emit signaling molecules to “convince” neighboring bacteria to express a gene, and when a sufficient density of these molecules is detected, a positive feedback loop kicks in that gets the laggards on board. This phenomenon, known as quorum sensing1, was first observed in bioluminescent bacteria 40 years ago2, but its importance and applications are still being explored.

blog.nature.org...

Microbial intelligence (popularly known as bacterial intelligence) is the intelligence shown by microorganisms. The concept encompasses complex adaptive behavior shown by single cells, and altruistic and/or cooperative behavior in populations of like or unlike cells mediated by chemical signaling that induces physiological or behavioral changes in cells and influences colony structures.

en.wikipedia.org...

Sounds a bit like plant life has..they communication goes via the roots.

I won't suprise me if bacteria are the link to that.

Bacteria " I forgot my moms name ,I know I knew it yesterday? " other bacteria " it's Julie, but can you tell me what day it is ,I know yesterday was Sunday. .."