Caenorhabditis microbiota: worm guts get populated

Until recently, almost nothing has been known about the natural microbiota of the model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Reporting their research in BMC Biology, Dirksen and colleagues describe the first sequencing effort to characterize the gut microbiota of environmentally isolated C. elegans and the related taxa Caenorhabditis briggsae and Caenorhabditis remanei In contrast to the monoxenic, microbiota-free cultures that are studied in hundreds of laboratories, it appears that natural populations of Caenorhabditis harbor distinct microbiotas.