In our Bacterial World exhibition we offer a selection of ten bacteria that have changed the world, some in profound ways. In this series of short fact-file posts we present one of the ten each week. This week’s bacteria are…
Alcanivorax borkumensis
– the oil-eaters
Where they live
Seas around the world are host to small numbers of Alcanivorax borkumensis. But if there is an oil spill, its numbers skyrocket, as the species feeds on crude oil.
Why they are important
After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, when the equivalent of 4.2 million barrels of oil gushed into the sea off Houston, Texas, Alcanivorax borkumensis unexpectedly helped reduce the environmental impact of the disaster.
How they are named Alcanivorax borkumensis voraciously eats oil molecules called alkanes, giving the first part of the name. The second part recalls where scientists first spotted the species, around Borkum Island in the North Sea.
How they work
The species breaks down crude oil using a range of enzymes it produces naturally. It can consume a wider range of alkane molecules than other bacterial species, and so it becomes the dominant species in a contaminated area.
Top image: : Dr. Joanna Lecka, Tayssir Kadri, Prof. Satinder Kaur Brar (INRS)
In our Bacterial World Science Short event series, researchers present their latest findings related to themes in the exhibition. At a recent Science Short, Hannah Behrens, a University of Oxford PhD student, explained how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics and how the species-specific antibiotics she studies might reduce the worrying rise in antimicrobial resistance.
Bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics present a huge problem. I work on developing new antibiotics that will slow the development of bacterial resistance.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Your body is full of bacteria. In fact, there are more bacteria than human cells in your body. Most of these bacteria are good for you; they help you digest food and protect you from diseases.
But once in a while a harmful bacterium causes an infection. This could be a lung, wound, or bladder infection, or something with a fancy name like, Black Death, tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis or chlamydia. The doctor will then prescribe you antibiotics to kill the offending bacteria.
Hannah Behrens delivers her Science Short talk at the Museum
The development of antibiotics in the 20th century was a major breakthrough. For the first time bacterial infections could be effectively and rapidly treated. Since 1942, when antibiotics first became available, we have discovered many new antibiotics which have saved millions of lives.
However, in the last 30 years we have not managed to develop any new antibiotics. During the same time, many bacteria have adapted to become resistant to the antibiotics we do have. In 2017, a woman in the US died because she had an infection with bacteria that were resistant to all available antibiotics. It is estimated that already 700,000 people in Europe alone die because of resistant bacteria per year. What is happening?
Bacteria are forming a lawn on this plate (light areas); where an antibiotic has been spotted on the bacteria they die and leave the surface blank (dark areas).
Every time we treat bacteria with antibiotics, most die, yet a few resistant bacterial cells survive. Like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, the resistant bacteria are usually at a disadvantage until a special situation arises (a foggy night for Rudolph; treatment with antibiotics for resistant bacteria).
Under usual circumstances, producing a resistance mechanism is a disadvantage: it wastes energy and slows down growth, so very few bacteria are resistant. Only when all the non-resistant bacteria are killed by antibiotics do the resistant ones thrive. They have no more competition, and have all the resources, such as food and space, to themselves.
The more we use antibiotics, the more resistant bacteria we get. It is essential not to use antibiotics carelessly.
More antibiotics are used in animal farming than on humans. If we eat less meat, and so reduce the farming of livestock for food, we may reduce the growth of resistance bacteria. Another approach is to only take antibiotics when the doctor prescribes them. Antibiotics do not help against viral infections like colds. In many low and middle income countries, antibiotics are available in supermarkets and it is no coincidence that these countries have higher levels of resistant bacteria.
The precision antibiotics research group in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford
Apart from avoiding the unnecessary use of antibiotics, scientists – including me – are trying to develop better therapies against bacteria. I study precision antibiotics: drugs that specifically kill one species of bacteria. The advantage of this is that all good bacteria remain unharmed and only the disease-causing species is targeted. This also means that only resistant bacteria from this one species get an advantage to thrive.
I am interested in species-specific antibiotics against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This bacterial species causes lung and wound infections and, according to the World Health Organization, is one of the three bacteria for which we most urgently need new antibiotics. Colleagues of mine tested different precision antibiotics against Pseudomonas and found one that is better than the others, called Pyocin S5.
Hannah’s painting of how researchers think pyocin antibiotics kill bacteria. The pink bacterium produces pyocins (pink balls), which enter the susceptible blue bacteria through pores (blue). The blue bacteria mistake the antibiotic for a nutrient and open the pore to let it in. Once inside the bacterium it forms a pore in the inner membrane which causes leakage of the cell contents and kills the cell.
I am now investigating how stable this antibiotic is, how it recognises this specific species of bacteria and how it enters the bacterial cells. This knowledge is important to decide on how to store, transport and administer the drug. I also hope that understanding why Pyocin S5 is more effective than the other antibiotics will allow us to design more effective, targeted antibiotics in the future.
My hope is that one day we will treat all bacterial infections with precision antibiotics and that antibiotic resistance will become a problem of the past.
Since we posted about ten-year-old Sarah’s amazing beetle discovery, we’ve had lots of queries as to why the insect needed to be caught and pinned. It’s a question we’re often asked, so here’s Darren Mann, Head of Life Collections at the Museum, to explain the value of ‘voucher specimens’.
The Museum’s collection houses over five million insect specimens, amassed over the past 300 years. This collection is, in effect, a biodiversity database, but unlike virtual databases, each data point has an associated ‘voucher specimen’ that was caught, pinned and labelled.
Although technical advances in digital macro-photography do reduce the need for some collecting, it is impossible to dissect an image to confirm an identification. So for many groups, even the best photograph in the world is inadequate for identification purposes.
Shingle CrawlerD18 (Psammoporus insularis Pittino, 2006) one of our few endemic insects.
Unlike plants and birds, many insects can only be identified with the aid of a microscope, to study tiny features that distinguish closely-related species. Some groups even require the dissection of minuscule genitalia to really tell them apart.
Entomologists take voucher specimens to enable this correct identification and these are later deposited in museum collections, making them available for further study in years to come. From an entomologist’s point of view, we believe we need to know what a species is, where it occurs and as much about it as possible, so we can inform biodiversity conservation.
The conservation assessment of UK insects by Natural England in their Species Status Reviews has only been possible with the data provided by entomologists, generated from collecting and identifying voucher specimens.
Entomologists follow a Code of Conduct for responsible collecting, which ensures they don’t remove too many species or damage the environment during their work .
There are numerous examples of the value and use of insect collections in contemporary science, including the discovery of previously unknown species in the UK and population genetics for butterfly conservation. Recently a species believed extinct in the UK was rediscovered. This was only made possible by checking the identification of several thousand museum specimens.
Museum collections also contain numerous examples of species now considered extinct in the UK. Without voucher specimens much of this research would be impossible and our understanding of insect distribution patterns, ecology and conservation would be significantly diminished.
Large Tortoiseshell butterflies, now considered to be extinct in the UK. The voucher specimens act as record in time of its occurrence in the UK.
What is rare? Sarah’s False Darkling Beetle (Anisoxya fuscula) has been described as ‘rare’, but what does that mean in reality? For most invertebrates when we talk about a rare species we are not talking about a tiny number of individuals. This conservation status is based on their known distribution and the level of threat they face. A species can be rare if it is only found at one or two locations, but at those locations there may be many thousands of individuals.
The greatest threats to biodiversity are well known and include habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation and pollution, such as pesticides and light. Taking a small number of voucher specimens to confirm the identification of species has negligible impact on its population. But if we don’t know it’s there because we couldn’t identify it, then a housing development destroys its entire habitat… well you get the picture!
The Museum’s collection of British insects already houses over a million specimens, and now it boasts one more special insect.
Ten-year-old Sarah Thomas of Abbey Woods Academy in Berinsfield, Oxfordshire discovered a rare beetle in her school grounds while taking part in a Museum outreach session. To Sarah’s excitement, the beetle is so important that it has now become part of the collections here at the Museum – and it is the first beetle of its kind to be added to the historically important British Insect Collection since the 1950s.
Sarah Thomas examines her beetle under the microscope with Darren Mann, entomologist and Head of Life Collections at the Museum
Sarah’s class took part in a HOPE Discovery Day, where they were visited by a professional entomologist, learnt about insect anatomy and how to identify and classify specimens, and went on the hunt for insects in the school grounds. HOPE – Heritage, Outreach and Preservation of Entomology – is reaching out to students in state primary schools across Oxfordshire, using the Museum’s British Insect Collection to spark curiosity and foster a love of natural history. It’s all part of a bigger project at the Museum, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, to safeguard this important Collection for the future and engage people with natural heritage.
Sarah brought her family to the Museum to see her beetle in the British Insect Collection.
After some searching, Sarah spotted a 5mm insect lurking under a leaf. To the untrained eye it looked rather like any other tiny shiny beetle, but luckily Darren Mann, Head of the Museum’s Life Collections, was visiting as part of the HOPE team. Darren spotted it as something unusually and took it back to the Museum to get a closer look under the microscope. He was then able to identify it as a False Darkling Beetle.
It’s Anisoxya fuscula, which is rated as Nationally Scarce in Great Britain. We seldom see these outside old forest habitats and this is the first beetle of its kind to be added to the collections for around 70 years.
– Darren Mann, Head of Life Collections
The False Darkling Beetle under the microscope and labelled in the Museum’s British Insect Collection as found by Sarah Thomas
The tiny beetle has been labelled with Sarah’s name and the location of her find, and added to the British Insect Collection. Though she’s very excited to have her specimen in the collections, Sarah admits that she hasn’t always been a big fan of insects:
Before Project Insect I didn’t really like insects, but now I really do.
– Sarah Thomas
Everyone at the Museum is really pleased with Sarah’s fantastic find and we hope it spreads the word to inspire others to become budding young entomologists too.
The beetle Sarah discovered will be stored in this drawer in the British Insect Collection.
A phylogeny? An evolutionary tree? A cladogram? We see the branching lines of these diagrams in many museum displays and science articles, but what do they tell us and why are they helpful?
Actually, no, there’s no such thing as a fish. Let’s take a step back…
The Jackson 5 – the ultimate singing family tree? Credit: Wikimedia Commons
It all comes down to common ancestry. All life is related, and we can think of it in terms of a family tree (or ‘phylogeny’): Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael were all Jacksons. United not only by a collective inability to control their feet, but also by common descent – they are all their parent’s children*.
By tracing further and further back in MJs family tree we could define ever larger groups united by common ancestors, first cousins (grandparents), second cousins (great-grandparents), all the way to every human, every mammal, every animal, and eventually all life – we are family (ok, that was Sister Sledge, but you get the point).
In the case of the tree of life, species are at the tips of branches and their common ancestors are where branches meet. A true biological group consists of a common ancestor and all its descendants, and we can use characteristics common between two species to imply common descent. Siblings look a lot like each other because they have inherited much of their appearance via common ancestry (i.e. their parents). In a similar way, two closely related species will share lots of inherited characteristics.
However, things are not quite that simple. Wings of bats, birds and insects are not inherited from a common ancestor but independently evolved for the same purpose, in this case flight. To complicate things further, as species evolve they may lose features inherited from their ancestors that other descendants retain. Snakes have lost their limbs, but still sit in the same group as lizards. These problems can be overcome by looking at many characteristics at once, using genetic information to test predicted relationships, and adding fossils to the tree to track change or loss through time (as in snakes).
Birds, insects and bats have all evolved wings for flight, but did not inherit this feature from a common ancestor. This is a good example of convergent evolution.
So, what about fish? ‘Fish’ is used to refer to pretty much anything that swims in water, but this lifestyle in animals like starfish (a relative of crinoids and sea urchins), jellyfish (a relative of corals) and cuttlefish (a relative of squid and octopus) evolved independently from more familiar fish like cod and carp. So, they’re not really ‘fish’ at all. With that in mind, how can we be fish? Well, the last common ancestor of, say, hagfish, salmon, shark and lungfish, is also the common ancestor of frogs, lizards, cats and us! All four-limbed animals with backbones descend from a fish-like ancestor. To complicate things further some have adapted to life back into the water and look much more like a ‘fish’ again, like dolphins, seals and the extinct ichthyosaur. Without a tree of life, we could not begin to unravel the evolutionary path that lead to all the diversity of life we see today.
The Blue Fin Tuna on display in the Museum is definitely a fish… right?!
You are closer to a chimp than a monkey, closer to a starfish than a snail, and closer to a mushroom than a tree. And, of course, there’s no such thing as a fish, but they still go well with chips.
*Joseph Jackson and Katherine Scruse had ten children, including the members of the Jackson 5, twenty-six grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.
A new choose-your-own-adventure board game created by researchers from the University of Oxford’s Department of Zoology puts players centre-stage in a global carnivore conservation challenge. The educational game is launching a Kickstarter fundraising campaign today and here co-designer Dr Cedric Tan tells us all about it…
Have you ever wondered what it’s like being a conservation biologist? We have spent the past year creating and testing a brand new board game – The WildCRU Game: Global Carnivore Conservation – that reveals some of the challenges faced by conservationists, the animals themselves, and the indigenous people who live with them. We’re now looking to get the game out to schools and communities all across the world with a £40,000 Kickstarter funding campaign featuring lots of rewards and discounts for our backers.
The game has been co-designed by Jennifer Spencer and myself to appeal to non-scientists and people of different ages. Players work together cooperatively as WildCRU researchers to gather the resources to complete carnivore conservation projects across the globe.
Stories in the game are taken directly from the real experiences of the WildCRU team. Players must decide what to do in choose-your-own-adventure-style encounters to gather the equipment, personnel, and transport resources they need for their projects.
In developing this game, we chose six varied WildCRU projects including the Hwange Lion Research project, based in Zimbabwe, and the famous water vole study in the UK, to show players the breadth of WildCRU’s research.
– Co-designer Jennifer Spencer, WildCRU
Multiple choice research questions are also based on real WildCRU research; they reveal more about the environment of each project – the flora, herbivores, competitor carnivores, and study species of the study sites. With the additional pressure of Global Events, players will learn about how difficult wildlife conservation projects can be.
It has been great to see that the game appeals to both kids and adults. People have found it to be an immersive experience in which players experience the challenges of real people, real situations and real research. We also hope that the game will provide local families with the opportunity to learn about the wildlife around them, and how to live in harmony alongside it.
Through the game and our other education efforts we’re hoping to increase environmental awareness and to introduce a wide variety of people to the science and processes behind real-world conservation.
Images and video: Laurie Hedges (lauriehedges.com)
Since we posted about 
