ReviewNature reviews. Microbiology2011
Should we stay or should we go: mechanisms and ecological consequences for biofilm dispersal.
Review in Nature reviews. Microbiology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 313 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
313 citing papers in PubMed, 860 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Proteomic Evidence for Biofilm-Mediated Copper Stress Adaptation in Oleidesulfovibrio alaskensis G20.Environmental microbiology · 2026Article
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- Biofilms in clinical infection: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and the evolving therapeutic landscape.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2026Review
- Influence of cell-cell distance on the ecology and evolution of microbial communities.The ISME journal · 2026Review
- Altering chemotaxis as a strategy to enhance the foraging range of motility-restricted bacteria.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Mixed-species interactions constrain diversification and shape biofilm evolution.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Calcium chloride induces dose-dependent architectural, mechanical, and transcriptional remodeling inFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- LtrB inhibitsCurrent research in food science · 2026Article
- Long-term fungicide exposure promotes bacterial adaptation and increases virulence of foodborne pathogenCurrent research in food science · 2026Article
- Transcriptional profiling ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Beyond survival: microbial dispersion via aerosolization as an evolutionary trait.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Impact of Antibiotic Exposure on Growth and Biofilms Formation inMicroorganisms · 2025Article
253 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In most environments, bacteria reside primarily in biofilms, which are social consortia of cells that are embedded in an extracellular matrix and undergo developmental programmes resulting in a predictable biofilm 'life cycle'. Recent research on many different bacterial species has now shown that the final stage in this life cycle includes the production and release of differentiated dispersal cells. The formation of these cells and their eventual dispersal is initiated through diverse and remarkably sophisticated mechanisms, suggesting that there are strong evolutionary pressures for dispersal from an otherwise largely sessile biofilm. The evolutionary aspect of biofilm dispersal is now being explored through the integration of molecular microbiology with eukaryotic ecological and evolutionary theory, which provides a broad conceptual framework for the diversity of specific mechanisms underlying biofilm dispersal. Here, we review recent progress in this emerging field and suggest that the merging of detailed molecular mechanisms with ecological theory will significantly advance our understanding of biofilm biology and ecology.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.