Forced harmony
We all have a city living inside; populations of microbes
reside in our intestines. They live symbiotically, competing,
helping others, living together in forced harmony. Their life is
instinctive, and they align to where existence makes the most
sense – where their preferred food source is the most abundant
and away from competitors and growth restrictors – seeking a
microbial utopia in an evolving landscape.
Microbes are defined by need. An individual can’t overconsume,
but they will increase in number in response to excess within
the system, a greedy, needy mass. One population in excess
can alter the landscape irreparably in microbial timescale.
Increasing numbers will inevitably exhaust nutrients and the
population will plummet, until only a few – those most suited
to the neoteric environment – will establish a niche and start
again.
Stability is best, every species living in harmony (best for them,
and best for us too, cue those rumbling, gaseous insides).
Oxygen acceptors protecting those for whom oxygen is poison,
one species consuming the waste from another, producing
fodder for others. These complex communities are living in
flux, an undulating mass, a wild but controlled dance.
Lives can be measured in minutes, in hours, in days.
Boom and bust.
Eat too much fried food: some microbe that loves a lipid will
rejoice. Binge on figs: all of that fibre and slightly alcoholic
sugar will make some populations move along more rapidly.
But what if, lurking in the background, one species exists in
harmony in a complex population, but which, feeling its way,
finding its nutrient in excess starts to reproduce, instinctive,
uncontrolled growth. Some will produce toxins, potent
chemicals that damage the very bedrock of the population, the
intestinal cells – and there goes the environment – down the
toilet!
How can you fix an environment when
everything is wrong?
You can add some microbial friends and hope that they stick
around long enough to restart the collective, repairing the
bedrock, grasping for stability, helping those around them,
overwhelming the foe. No anthropomorphism – there is no
feeling, no intent, no mindful domination, no submission, no
planning; just movement, digestion and excretion, life and
death, give and take, symbiosis, perfect use of resources.
Can we learn from microbes? I think so.
Boom too much and eventually there will be a bust. Stability
comes from the appropriate use of resources – all resources,
including those altered as a result of prior use by someone
else. Unencumbered greed can alter the bedrock of the
population and risk all members of the community. Surely
there’s a lesson here.
Dr Megan Lloyd
