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Description

Community living offers great benefits. One drawback is overcrowding, which leads to unneighborly behavior. Confusing friend with food, predators appear within the playfully swimming bacterial cooperatives.

The "Vampire-berry" (Vampirococcus) attaches to and eats away the larger prey cells. Other microcosmic predators like Bdellovibrio slip just inside the surface of an unsuspecting neighbor, close the membrane and start digesting. A common predator lives and feeds by itself until resources diminish. When nearly overcome by crowding, it moves inside its intended victim and starts to divide.

It is speculated, in one of nature's luscious ironies, that the outcome of invasion, followed by truce, produces a grand blossoming in the history of life.

Date Created

1997

Holding Institution

University of Montana--Missoula. Environmental Studies Program

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Holder

© 1997 Stiftung Drittes Millennium

Item Type

Exhibit

Digital File Format

image/jpeg

Media Type

Text; Image

Digital Image Number

23_wtt_file02_20-39.jpg

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