EPISODE 45: Worms Shape Their World: The Hidden Power of the Microbiome

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱

Today we flip the usual perspective.

We often think about how the environment shapes the worm.

But what if the worm is shaping the environment?

⸻

🧬 The central idea

C. elegans doesn’t just respond to microbes — it actively reshapes microbial communities.

Across a naturalistic “boom-to-bust” lifecycle, worm populations:

• expand rapidly

• consume and interact with bacteria

• then collapse into dauer

And through that process, they leave a lasting imprint on their surroundings.

⸻

🌱 What happens to the environment?

Even without worms, microbial communities change over time.

But with worms present, something different happens:

• microbial communities follow distinct trajectories

• initially different environments begin to converge

• specific bacterial families are consistently depleted or enriched

In other words, worms don’t just graze — they engineer microbial ecosystems.

⸻

🦠 The microbiome connection

The key link is the worm’s own gut microbiome.

Bacterial families that:

• thrive inside the worm

• are selected during feeding

are the same ones that become enriched in the environment.

While others — like Pseudomonadaceae — are depleted over time.

So the worm is not just consuming bacteria.

It is:

• selecting

• amplifying

• and redistributing microbial populations

⸻

⚡ A bidirectional system

This is the important shift.

We move from:

environment → worm

to:

environment ↔ worm

A feedback loop where:

• microbes shape the worm

• worms reshape microbes

• and the ecosystem evolves as a result

⸻

🧠 The take-home message

C. elegans is not just a model organism.

It’s an ecosystem engineer.

And this matters, because nematodes are one of the most abundant life forms on Earth.

So small-scale interactions — feeding, microbiome assembly, population cycles — may scale up to influence:

• nutrient cycling

• microbial diversity

• and ecosystem function

⸻

📄 Paper discussed

Bodkhe, R.; Sankaran, K.; Shapira, M. (2026)

Caenorhabditis elegans populations shape their microbial environment

npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

DOI: 10.1038/s41522-026-00975-z

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📧 veeren.chauhan@nottingham.ac.uk