Chemical warfare at small scales: does eukaryotic chemical defense theory fit biofilms?

长期以来，细菌生态学一直被与高等生物的生态学分开对待。因此，我们不知道细菌的生态学是否遵循与植物和动物相同的一般规律。这大大削弱了我们对自然世界的了解，以及我们管理环境的能力。在这个项目中，我们将系统地测试细菌系统中的生态防御理论。我们的目标是融合我们对这些非常不同的有机体的生态的理解。动植物生态学和环境微生物学的这种结合对于这两个领域来说都是新的，因此像这样的研究有可能把澳大利亚带入这一令人兴奋的环境新方法的前沿。

The ecology of bacteria has long been treated separately from the ecology of higher organisms. Thus we do not know whether the ecology of bacteria operates by the same general rules as those of plants and animals. This significantly diminishes our understanding of the natural world, and our capacity to manage our environment. In this project we will systematically test ecological defense theories in bacterial systems. Our aim is to merge our understanding of the ecology of these very different organisms. This integration of plant and animal ecology and environmental microbiology is new for both fields, and thus studies such as this one have the potential to put Australia at the forefront of this exciting new approach to our environment.