The logo of the new colouring book "coloured bacteria from A-Z" published by BacterialWorld.

When life becomes difficult, some bacteria do not die. They change gears and start sporulating.

Sporulation is a survival strategy for some bacteria when conditions become too harsh for normal growth. Instead of continuing as an active cell, the bacterium protects its genetic material inside a tough, dormant spore.

These spores are bacteria “on pause”. They are not actively growing, but they are not dead either. Spores can survive heat, cold, dryness and starvation better than actively growing cells. When conditions improve, the bacterium can return from this protected state.

In Bacillus subtilis, sporulation is a well-studied example of bacterial hibernation. The process is complex and highly regulated, with hundreds of genes necessary to control and activate sporulation. Building a spore is not a simple emergency trick; it is an organised cellular programme.

Spores can also help bacteria disperse. Streptomyces spores, for example, can stick to springtails. These carry the spores around to new places, where they will hopefully find better conditions and more nutrients.

Sporulation shows how patient bacteria can be. When the world becomes too hot, too dry, too cold or too hungry, some bacteria press pause and wait for better days.

Learn about more bacteria

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The BacterialWorld and Sporulation

How bacteria create the smells in our world

Bacteria create various smells in our world, from pleasant aromas like freshly baked bread to the less appealing ones like body odour. As bacteria produce volatile organic compounds as part of their metabolism, these contribute to the scents we encounter in our environment, food and even on our bodies. Learn about smelly examples such as the earthy scent of geosmin produced by soil bacteria, the unique aromas in fermented foods and the role of skin bacteria in creating our body odour and smelly feet.

Quorum sensing brings bacteria together and triggers them to make uniform decisions.

Quorum sensing – or how bacteria talk to each other

Bacteria also don’t like being lonely and need to know they are not alone. And often they need to talk to other bacteria and interact with them. To do so, they use a mechanism called quorum sensing. Read on to find out more about this fascinating mechanism.

Bacteria can form multicellular organisms. They can form bacterial filaments, multicellular aggregates, hyphae networks or magnetotactic multicellular prokaryotes.

Together we are strong – bacteria form multicellular organisms

When thinking of bacteria, you might have the picture of a single cell in your mind. But interestingly, some bacteria come as multicellular organisms with advanced functions. Here, we will learn what multicellular bacteria are and why bacteria form multicellular organisms. We will then look at some colourful examples of multicellular bacteria.

20 (giant) microbes everyone should have heard about

20 interesting microbes everyone should have heard about

The microbial world is super colorful and diverse.

Even though, we sometimes hear too many negative news articles about certain players of the microbial world, we should not forget about all the other interesting and helpful microbes.

To remind you that the microbial world consists of so many more players, we assembled this list of common and interesting microbes.

Springtail are attracted to the geosmin produced by Streptomyces bacteria. They eat the bacteria and transport them to new places.

Bacteria produce geosmin to trick bugs into hitchhiking

Bacteria produce many different molecules with unique tastes and smells. We and animals can react in specific ways to the bacterial molecules, however it is not always clear how these molecules actually help the bacteria. A new study focused on one such molecules and revealed that bacteria produce geosmin to attract small animals to use them to hitchhike.