title: Alien invasions and gut "island biogeography".
abstract: Animals harbor gut microbiota characteristic of the host and diet of origin. Whether bacteria from diverse nonindigenous origins successfully invade foreign gut habitats is not well known. Now, Seedorf et al. show that microbiota from a variety of disparate habitats can successfully colonize and compete in the mammalian gut environment.
authors.affiliation: Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education, University of Hawaii, Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Electronic address: delong@mit.edu.
authors.forename: Edward F
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: DeLong
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000254:growth & development*; D041981:Gastrointestinal Tract / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice / Q000382:microbiology*