We Want Your Soil July 2025

Description

A citizen science event where members of the public contributed soil samples for isolation of bacterial strains. Samples were cultured and identified, and participants were sent a report of the results.

The world is full of microbes- and especially in soil, where they thrive, forming complex communities to survive and grow. In these communities, bacteria can produce a slimy extracellular matrix made of sugars and proteins to protect themselves. This kind of community is called a biofilm, and this is what we’ve been studying at the Nicola Stanley-Wall laboratory at the Division of Molecular Microbiology in the University of Dundee.

We study Bacillus subtilis, a species which commonly grows in soil, where it promotes plant growth by helping them take up nutrients and keeping harmful bacteria away. Bacillus subtilis is also a model organism for studying how biofilms develop: it grows very quickly, and we’ve sequenced its entire genome, making it an excellent model for testing different hypotheses. In the laboratory we do most of our work with one Bacillus subtilis strain called “NCIB 3610”, but we’re interested in testing strains found in soil in the real world to see if our observations are consistent in wild strains too. By donating your soil, you’re contributing to improving our understanding of how Bacillus subtilis grows- thank you!

Period	18 Jul 2025
Degree of Recognition	Local