Abstract
The roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has risen to the status of a top model organism for biological research in the last fifty years. Among laboratory animals, this tiny nematode is one of the simplest and easiest organisms to handle. And its life outside the laboratory is beginning to be unveiled. Like other model organisms, C. elegans has a boom-and-bust lifestyle. It feasts on ephemeral bacterial blooms in decomposing fruits and stems. After resource depletion, its young larvae enter a migratory diapause stage, called the dauer. Organisms known to be associated with C. elegans include migration vectors (such as snails, slugs and isopods) and pathogens (such as microsporidia, fungi, bacteria and viruses). By deepening our understanding of the natural history of C. elegans, we establish a broader context and improved tools for studying its biology.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.05849.001
Highlights
The free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a major model species that is used in a range of biological research
E. coli was used because, as another model organism, it was already available in many laboratories—not because it was originally associated with wild C. elegans
We summarize our current knowledge of the natural history of this C. elegans, show how the isolation of natural pathogens of C. elegans informed basic biological research, and discuss a number of open questions
Summary
The free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a major model species that is used in a range of biological research. C. elegans is found worldwide, predominantly in humid temperate areas (Figures 1 and 2A-D) (Kiontke et al, 2011; Andersen et al, 2012) This species was originally isolated in rich soil or compost (Hodgkin and Doniach, 1997), where it is mostly found in a non-feeding stage called the dauer (Barriere and Felix, 2005a, 2007).
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