Microbiological phenomena
Observable processes, interactions, or events involving microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses.
Microbial growth: An increase in microbial cell number or biomass through cellular growth and division. Growth rates shape population changes and determine how quickly microbes colonize a habitat.
Pathogenesis: The biological process by which an infectious agent causes disease in a host. It connects microbial activity to the development and progression of infection.
Microorganism: An organism too small to be seen clearly without magnification, including bacteria, archaea, many fungi, and protists. It provides the broad biological category encompassing most organisms involved here.
Bacterial conjugation: The transfer of DNA between bacterial cells through direct contact, commonly involving a conjugative plasmid. It is a well-characterized case of genetic exchange between living microbial cells.
Biogeochemical cycle: The movement and transformation of chemical elements through living organisms and the physical environment. Microbes drive key transformations in the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycles.
Quorum sensing: Cell-to-cell signaling that lets microbes coordinate behavior in response to population density. It explains how microbes synchronize activities that individual cells cannot accomplish alone.
Antimicrobial resistance: The ability of microorganisms to survive exposure to drugs that would otherwise inhibit or kill them. Resistance emerges and spreads through microbial evolution and gene exchange.
Bacterium: A single-celled prokaryotic organism lacking a membrane-bound nucleus. Bacteria account for many familiar microbial processes and interactions.
Bacteriophage: A virus that infects bacteria and archaea. Phage infection makes microbial killing and gene transfer directly observable.
Microbial evolution: Heritable change in microbial populations across generations through mutation, selection, and gene exchange. Observable microbial interactions alter survival and reproduction, shaping evolutionary change.