Microbial biofilm communities are protected against environmental extremes or clearance by antimicrobial agents or the host immune response. They also serve as a site from which microbial populations search for new niches by dispersion via single planktonic cells or by detachment by protected biofilm aggregates that, until recently, were thought to become single cells ready for attachment. Mathematically modeling these events has provided investigators with testable hypotheses for further study. Such was the case in the recent article by Kragh et al. (K. N. Kragh, J. B. Hutchison, G. Melaugh, C. Rodesney, A. E. Roberts, Y. Irie, P. Ø. Jensen, S. P. Diggle, R. J. Allen, V. Gordon, and T. Bjarnsholt, mBio 7:e00237-16, 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00237-16), in which investigators were able to identify the differential competitive advantage of biofilm aggregates to directly attach to surfaces compared to the single-celled planktonic populations. Therefore, as we delve deeper into the properties of the biofilm mode of growth, not only do we need to understand the complexity of biofilms, but we must also account for the properties of the dispersed and detached populations and their effect on reseeding.
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