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1media/Jet Air Dryer Bacteria.jpg2019-04-07T23:35:57-07:00Sam Henrickson5cd0ff97c337b26d01e84db58bdb9506b40fff7a335194Knowledge and Communicationplain2019-04-20T20:48:43-07:00Sam Henrickson5cd0ff97c337b26d01e84db58bdb9506b40fff7aBacteria do in fact speak with one another, using a form of communication called quorum sensing. According to Dr. Guy-Bart Stan, "in nature, bacteria happily communicate and cooperate with other bacteria the know and recognise--for instance brewing is sometimes only possible via different bacteria and yeasts working together." However, bacteria that would never have co-evolved together would have no way of communicating, for example, bacteria found only in the ocean would not have any way of communicating with bacteria that resides on land.
Quorum sensing is the way bacteria respond to changes in density of population in the cell. By releasing molecules called autoinducers, bacteria change their gene expression to fit where the population is on the scale of eligibility between continued production and halted production of replicates. It is these autoinducers that are used to communicate both inter- and intra-species, which means that the autoinducers would likely be different from species to species, but would have something like a pidgin language (a language used between humans developed between groups that do not have a common language but do have prolonged contact.) The bacteria using these autoinducers for quorum sensing are using it to communicate to further their Ultimate Perfection both when within the species (whether or not the cell can sustain more members of population) and between different species (when attempting to use one another to spread more quickly.)
