<p>Amoebas Grow a Bumper Crop of Bacteria
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Published: January 19, 2011</p>
<p>Researchers from Rice University report in the journal Nature that the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum can disperse seed and then selectively harvest crop. The amoeba is popular among scientists because it lives in soil throughout the United States and in many other parts of the world. The crops that the amoebas farm are the bacteria that they prefer to eat. Only about one-third of the amoebas, known as farmers, exhibit agricultural tendencies and carry bacteria with them to seed.</p>
<p>Being a farmer is an advantage in situations where no food or the preferred food is not available, said Debbie Brock, an evolutionary biologist at Rice and the study’s lead author.</p>
<p>“In a situation where they find a food source they don’t like and they’re carrying the bacteria they’d like to eat, the farmers can grow it for themselves,” Ms. Brock said. “And they harvest; they don’t eat all of it, but they save some.”</p>
<p>This in turn benefits future generations of the amoeba, which can reproduce both sexually and asexually.</p>