ArticlePLoS biology2015
Biofilm Formation As a Response to Ecological Competition.
Article in PLoS biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 147 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
147 citing papers in PubMed, 299 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Minding the gap: collective determinants of multiscale structure across interacting bacterial colonies.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Historical contingency limits adaptive diversification in a spatially structured environment.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Acidifying bacteria inhibit pathogenic bacteria more strongly with increasing glucose.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Review
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- Lectins as Natural Antibiofilm Agents in the Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance: A Review.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Engineered Marine Biofilms for Ocean Environment Monitoring.ACS synthetic biology · 2025Article
- Regulation and induction of fungal secondary metabolites: a comprehensive review.Archives of microbiology · 2025Review
- New Methodologies as Opportunities in the Study of Bacterial Biofilms, Including Food-Related Applications.Microorganisms · 2025Review
- Review
- Orthopaedic infections: novel treatment strategies and evolving concepts.OTA international : the open access journal of orthopaedic trauma · 2025Article
- MSMEG_5850, a global TetR family member supports Mycobacterium smegmatis to survive environmental stress.Folia microbiologica · 2025Article
- The mitigation of spatial constraint in porous environments enhances biofilm phylogenetic and functional diversity.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Microbial community structure is affected by phage-resistance associated increases in host density.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2025Article
- Disentangling the feedback loops driving spatial patterning in microbial communities.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Review
- Engineering plant holobionts for climate-resilient agriculture.The ISME journal · 2025Review
- Bacteria use exogenous peptidoglycan as a danger signal to trigger biofilm formation.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
87 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Erratum issuedCorrection: Biofilm Formation As a Response to Ecological Competition.2015 · Oliveria, Nuno M [corrected to Oliveira, Nuno M]
Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Bacteria form dense surface-associated communities known as biofilms that are central to their persistence and how they affect us. Biofilm formation is commonly viewed as a cooperative enterprise, where strains and species work together for a common goal. Here we explore an alternative model: biofilm formation is a response to ecological competition. We co-cultured a diverse collection of natural isolates of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa and studied the effect on biofilm formation. We show that strain mixing reliably increases biofilm formation compared to unmixed conditions. Importantly, strain mixing leads to strong competition: one strain dominates and largely excludes the other from the biofilm. Furthermore, we show that pyocins, narrow-spectrum antibiotics made by other P. aeruginosa strains, can stimulate biofilm formation by increasing the attachment of cells. Side-by-side comparisons using microfluidic assays suggest that the increase in biofilm occurs due to a general response to cellular damage: a comparable biofilm response occurs for pyocins that disrupt membranes as for commercial antibiotics that damage DNA, inhibit protein synthesis or transcription. Our data show that bacteria increase biofilm formation in response to ecological competition that is detected by antibiotic stress. This is inconsistent with the idea that sub-lethal concentrations of antibiotics are cooperative signals that coordinate microbial communities, as is often concluded. Instead, our work is consistent with competition sensing where low-levels of antibiotics are used to detect and respond to the competing genotypes that produce them.
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.