Biology Now, 2e

272 ■ CHAPTER 15 Bacteria and Archaea

BIODIVERSITY

Figure 15.4

Citizen scientists work alongside professional scientists to increase our

knowledge about the natural world

There are many ways you can contribute to science—by collecting data, analyzing data, or even

being an experimental subject like the video game players who work with Sebastian Seung. And the

advantages are not one-way: citizen scientists learn new things, often have fun, and report feeling a

sense of purpose and contribution.

Q1: In which of the three ways did the navel microbiome participants contribute?

Q2: Which of the advantages listed above do you think the navel microbiome citizen scientists

received?

Q3: Would you be willing to contribute to the navel microbiome project? Why or why not?

Data collection Data analysis

Participation as an

experimental subject

Citizen scientists from the Republic of the Congo are

learning to map the forest with GPS.

A citizen scientist in North America uses an app to

document plant budding dates.

Sebastian Seung, a professor at Princeton University,

works with citizen scientists around the world to

map the brain through a video game.

Dutch tradesman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

first opened our eyes to the microbial world

back in 1668, when he used simple, handcrafted

microscopes to discover bacteria swimming

around in pond water. In the intervening 350

years, our knowledge of the microbial world has

come a long way.

Today, we know that bacteria and archaeans

make up more than two-thirds of the species

found on Earth. In 2016, microbiologists at UC

Berkeley published a revised evolutionary tree

of life that, for the first time, included the vast

diversity of bacteria and archaeans lurking in

Earth’s nooks and crannies. With the data used