In the last two decades, the widespread application of genetic and genomic approaches has
revealed a bacterial world astonishing in its ubiquity and diversity. This review examines …

Comparative genome analyses indicate that every taxonomic group so far studied contains
10–20% of genes that lack recognizable homologs in other species. Do such ‘orphan' or ‘…

Because it appears that almost all organisms are part of an interdependent metaorganism,
an understanding of the underlying host–microbe species associations, and of evolution and …

The freshwater cnidarian Hydra was first described in 1702 1 and has been the object of
study for 300 years. Experimental studies of Hydra between 1736 and 1744 culminated in the …

Background Characterization of the innate immune repertoire of extant cnidarians is of both
fundamental and applied interest - it not only provides insights into the basic immunological '…

Given the complexity of host-microbiota symbioses, scientists and philosophers are asking
questions at new biological levels of hierarchical organization—what is a holobiont and …

Epithelia in animals are colonized by complex communities of microbes. Although a topic of
long-standing interest, understanding the evolution of the microbial communities and their …

The integration of research from developmental biology and ecology into evolutionary theory
has given rise to a relatively new field, ecological evolutionary developmental biology (Eco-…

While largely studied because of their harmful effects on human health, there is growing
appreciation that bacteria are important partners for invertebrates and vertebrates, including man…

Understanding the evolution of development in large part relies on the study of phylogenetically
old organisms. Cnidarians, such as Hydra, have become attractive model organisms for …