ArticleFrontiers in microbiology2014
The symbiont side of symbiosis: do microbes really benefit?
Article in Frontiers in microbiology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 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
37 citing papers in PubMed.
- Two kinds of evolutionary individuals: the concept of common interest as an evolutionary foundation of dualism on biological individuality.History and philosophy of the life sciences · 2026Article
- Leaffooted bugs enrich local soil with their horizontally acquired symbiont.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- The Host Coral Bleaching Response Viewed Through the Lens of Multi-Omics: Multi-Omics Provides the Tools to Understand the Complex Molecular Basis of Coral Bleaching, Which Can Aid Conservation Efforts.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2026Review
- Differentiation in bacterial symbiont growth between insecticide treated and untreated tropical bed bug.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2025Article
- Exploring the Oral Microbiome: Understanding its Impact on the Development of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma.Current microbiology · 2025Review
- Microbial Community Dynamics in Natural Drosophila melanogaster Populations Across Seasons.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Temperature influences outcomes of an environmentally acquired symbiosis.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Ecology and evolution of the social microbiome.Annual review of ecology, evolution, and systematics · 2024Article
- The impacts of host association and perturbation on symbiont fitness.Symbiosis (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2024Article
- A theoretical model for host-controlled regulation of symbiont density.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2023Article
- Environments and Hosts Structure the Bacterial Microbiomes of Fungus-Gardening Ants and their Symbiotic Fungus Gardens.Microbial ecology · 2023Article
- Environmental stress promotes the persistence of facultative bacterial symbionts in amoebae.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- How It All Begins: Bacterial Factors Mediating the Colonization of Invertebrate Hosts by Beneficial Symbionts.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2022Review
- Context dependence in the symbiosis betweenEvolution letters · 2022Article
- Intracellular Bacterial Symbionts in Corals: Challenges and Future Directions.Microorganisms · 2021Review
- Microbial evolution and transitions along the parasite-mutualist continuum.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2021Review
- Elucidating bacterial adhesion to mucosal surface by an original AFM approach.BMC microbiology · 2021Article
- Anticandidal Activities byFrontiers in oral health · 2021Review
- Evolution of animal immunity in the light of beneficial symbioses.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Coordination of host and symbiont gene expression reveals a metabolic tug-of-war between aphids andProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Microbial associations are integral to all eukaryotes. Mutualism, the interaction of two species for the benefit of both, is an important aspect of microbial associations, with evidence that multicellular organisms in particular benefit from microbes. However, the microbe's perspective has largely been ignored, and it is unknown whether most microbial symbionts benefit from their associations with hosts. It has been presumed that microbial symbionts receive host-derived nutrients or a competition-free environment with reduced predation, but there have been few empirical tests, or even critical assessments, of these assumptions. We evaluate these hypotheses based on available evidence, which indicate reduced competition and predation are not universal benefits for symbionts. Some symbionts do receive nutrients from their host, but this has not always been linked to a corresponding increase in symbiont fitness. We recommend experiments to test symbiont fitness using current experimental systems of symbiosis and detail considerations for other systems. Incorporating symbiont fitness into symbiosis research will provide insight into the evolution of mutualistic interactions and cooperation in general.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.