This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A typical scene at a local farmers market: Various stalls offer fruit, vegetables and much more. Every customer has their favorite stalls, though these may change occasionally.
Some symbiotic relationships seem to work just like that, a study by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology reveals in Science Advances. The team led by Nicole Dubilier, Harald Gruber-Vodicka and first author Anna Mankowski investigated the "shopping habits" of tiny marine worms living in close association with bacteria. This association is so close that the worms are no longer viable on their own: They have no mouth, gut or other excretory organs.
To feed and dispose of their waste, they host tiny tenants: Different bacteria live under the skin of these thin, short worms and serve as their providers and waste managers. To stay with the metaphor, the bacteria are the market stalls where the worms get what they need to survive. For their survival, the worms are completely dependent on their bacterial tenants.
The partners make a perfect match. The bacterial communities of worms of the same species are very similar. Each worm visits the same bacterial market stalls, where it gets exactly what it needs.
With such a tight relationship, one would expect it to be very stable—following the motto: Never change a winning team. "However, we found the exact opposite," Mankowski reports. The relationship is indeed stable within one species.
Even when living in distant ocean regions, worms of the same species harbor the same or very similar bacterial communities. However, this similarity quickly vanishes when comparing different hosts. Even closely related worm species often host very different bacterial communities.
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